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JOHNS  HOPKINS  UNIVERSITY  STUDIES 

IN 

HISTORICAL   AND   POLITICAL   SCIENCE 

HERBERT  B.  ADAMS,  Editor 


History  is  past  Politics  and  Politics  present  History  —  Fretm an 


SECOND  SERIES 
IV 

SAMUEL  ADAMS 


The  Man  of  the  Town-Meeting 


BY  JAMES  K.  HOSMER,  A.  M. 

Professor  of  English  and  German  Literature,  Washington  University,  St.  Louis,  Mo. 


BALTIMORE 

N.  MURRAY,  PUBLICATION  AGENT,  JOHNS  HOPKINS  UNIVERSITY 
APRIL,    1884 


JOHJT  MUBPHT  A  00.,   PRISTERS, 
BALTIMORE. 


SAMUEL   ADAMS, 
THE  MAN  OF  THE  TOWN-MEETING.1 


THE  FOLK-MOTE. 

Wi:  are  taught  by  the  science  of  our  time  that  if  any 
organic  body  be  analyzed,  we  reach  at  length  the  primordial 
cell ;  beyond  this  it  is  impossible  to  go.  Like  the  body  of  a 
tree  or  the  body  of  a  man,  so  a  body-politic  has  its  primor- 
dial cell."  What  is  the  proper  primordial  cell  of  a  free 
Anglo-Saxon  state  ? 

In  transacting  the  business  of  a  nation,  the  mass  of  the 
people  can  act  only  through  representatives,  the  sovereign  or 
president  who  is  put  in  the  supreme  place, — the  Congress  or 
Parliament,  who  are  set  to  make  the  laws.  As  regards  the 
sub-divisions  of  a  nation,  even  in  transacting  the  business  of 
a  county,  things  are  quite  too  large  and  complicated  to  be 
managed  in  any  other  way  than  by  delegates  appointed  for 
that  purpose.  But  somewhere  the  people  ought  to  act  of 
themselves.  "  It  is  not  by  instinct,"  says  a  wise  writer,3 
whose  words  are  here  abridged,  "  that  men  are  able  to  form  a 
proper  judgment  as  to  the  qualifications  and  acts  of  their  rep- 

1  This  paper  is  based  on  studies  for  a  new  life  of  Samuel  Adams. 

8  Herbert  B.  Adams :  "  The  Germanic  Origin  of  New  England  Towns," 
p.  5. 

3J.  Toulmin  Smith,  "Local  Self-Govermuent  and  Centralization,"  p. 
29,  etc. 

5 


6  Samuel  Adams,  ike  Man  of  the  Town-Meeting.       [208 

resentatives.  Such  judgment  can  never  be  got  by  men  in 
any  other  way  than  by  habitual  and  free  discussion,  among 
themselves,  of  similar  subjects.  Through  a  certain  inde- 
pendence of  thought,  and  conduct,  to  be  only  acquired  by 
being  continually  called  on  to  talk  and  act  in  public  affairs, 
do  men  become  fit  to  elect  representatives  and  judge  of  their 
conduct.  Representative  a>-emblies  must  exist  for  the  more 
convenient  carrying  on  of  business,  but  regular,  fixed,  fre- 
quent, and  accessible  inert in^s  of  the  individual  freemen 
should  also  take  place,  in  which  public  matters  shall  be  laid 
before  the  people,  by  them  to  be  discussed,  and  approved  or 
disapproved.  It  is  such  local  self-government  that  affords 
the  most  valuable  education,  both  as  to  thought  and  action ; 
the  faculties  of  man  will  have  this  as  their  best  school.  As 
long  as  everything  is  done  for  them,  men  have  no  occasion  to 
think  at  all.  and  will  soon  become  incapable  of  thinking :  but 
the  moment  they  are  thrown  on  their  own  resources,  they 
wake  from  their  torpor.  It  becomes  necessary  that  they 
should  act  ;  and  to  act,  they  mu<t  think. 

No  name  was  ever  devi<«-d  which  more  fully  expressed  a 
reality  than  the  word  "  Folk-mote,"  discussion  by  the  assem- 
bled people.  Throughout  tin-  Anirlo-Saxon  laws,  indeed,  in 
the  earliest  accounts  of  the  Teutons,  we  find  continual  ivfer- 
ence  to  the  "  Folk-mote,"  and  long  ;»ft<T  the  coming  of  Wil- 
liam the  Conqueror,  the  thing  is  to  be  traced.1  It  was  the 
duty,  enforced  by  penalties,  of  every  man,  to  attend  his 
Folk-mote,  in  order  to  discharge  there  the  responsibilities 
which  attached  to  him  as  a  member  of  the  state.  There 
exi-t.-d  in  Kugland  a  sy.-tem  of  local  self-government  by 
which  there  were  fixed,  frequent,  and  accessible  meetings 
together  of  the  folk  or  people,  for  discussing  and  determining 


'Tacitus:  Germania.  XI.  Waitz:  Deutsche  Verfa,ssungsgeschi<  ht«% 
Band  I,  4.  Freeman:  Growth  of  EnirlUh  Constitution,  p.  17.  M:iy  :  Con- 
stitutional History  of  England,  II,  4GO.  Phillips:  Geschichte  des  Angel- 
-1  h-i.si-hen  Kechts,  p.  I'l. 


209]       Samuel  AdamSj  the  Man  of  the  Town-Meeting.  7 

upon  all  matters  of  common  interest, — a  system,  the  skeleton 
of  which  still  exists,  though  it  has  been  much  overlaid.  The 
fact  is  clear  and  unmistakable  that  there  existed  a  system  of 
local  self-government  minutely  ramified  and  wisely  devised 
so  that  there  should  be  meetings  together  of  the  people  in 
everv  part  for  the  common  purposes  of  getting  justice  nigh- 
ar-haiid,  and  also  of  understanding,  discussing,  and  determin- 
ing upon  all  matters  of  common  interest." 

This  Folk-mote  it  is  which  lies,  or  should  lie,  at  the  foun- 
dation of  everything  in  an  Anglo-Saxon  free  state.  For  con- 
venience' sake,  in  carrying  on  large  affairs,  representation 
must  come  in ;  but  below  that  must  be  the  assembly  of  the 
people,  discussing  and  judging  the  public  business,  their 
interest  roused,  their  i'acultirs  trained,  from  the  fact  that  they 
so  discuss  and  judge.  This  is  the  Primordial  Cell  of  an 
Anglo-Saxon  body-politic — this  Folk-mote.  Can  the  Folk- 
mote  be  found  in  America? 

At  the  time  of  the  colonization  of  America,  the  old  self- 
government  of  the  people  had  been,  in  England,  in  great  part 
lost.  The  responsibility  tor  the  misfortune  was  a  double  one. 
It  rested  to  some  extent  with  the  people  themselves,  who  for- 
got their  birth-right, — to  some  extent  also  with  the  kings  and 
irreat  men,  who  forgot  they  were  only  ministers  of  the  people 
and  assumed  to  be  their  masters.  The  sixteenth  century  and 
the  first  years  of  the  seventeenth  century  found  on  the  throne 
of  England  a  race  of  kings  who  believed  they  ruled  jure 
divino,  owning  little  responsibility  to  the  people  in  their 
exercise  of  power ;  the  people  had  few  rights,  in  the  idea  of 
these  sovereigns,  which  they  were  bound  to  respect.  Let  us 
look  at  the  colonies  which  were  sent  forth  at  this  time.  When 
the  founders  of  New  England  established  themselves,  they  did 
not  reproduce  the  state  of  things  they  had  left  behind,  nor  on 
the  other  hand  did  they  invent  something  new.  They  went 
back  to  those  old  ways  which  the  English  had  to  so  large  an 
extent  forsaken.  The  little  company  of  poor  men  had  signed 
the  compact  in  the  cabin  of  the  "  Mayflower/7  to  be  mutually 


8  Samuel  Adams,  the  Man  of  the  Jo//-//-.V<  ding.      [210 

bound  by  laws  which  all  were  to  have  a  voice  in  framing, 
had  set  foot  on  the  lonely  bowlder,  which  now  seems  almost 
likely  to  be  worn  away  by  the  reverent  trampling  of  the 
multitudes  who  visit  it,  and  exploring  for  a  liulc,  had  built 
their  camp-fires  at  last  where  sweet  water  gushed  freely  from 
the  bosom  of  a  hill.  They  felt  forgotten  by  the  world.  Doing 
what  was  easiest  to  be  done,  following  traditions  which,  so  to 
speak,  had  come  down  in  their  blood,  they  set  apart  certain 
land  to  be  held  in  common,  a  homestead  for  each  man,  built 
a  fort  of  timber  on  tin-  hill  close  by,  ran  their  palisade  where 
danger  seemed  most  to  threaten,  established  certain  simple 
rules,  and  lo,  when  all  was  done,  the  little  settlement  was 
throughout,  as  to  internal  constitution  and  external  feature*. 
essentially  the  same  as  an  Anglo-Saxon  "tun"  or  "burh," 
such  as  a  boat-load  of  the  followers  of  Hengist  or  Cerdic 
mi^ht  have  >«-t  up.  as  they  con-ted,  searching  for  a  home, 
along  the  isle  of  Thanet — or  further  back  still,  the  .-a un- 
essentially as  a  village  of  the  \Veser  shore  or  the  Odenwald, 
set  ii])  in  the  primeval  heathen  days.1 

When,  ten  years  later.  Winthrop  with  his  followers  came 
to  settle  Boston,  they  were  richer,  more  numerous,  better 
educated,  but  it  was  convenient  for  them,  too,  to  go  back  to 
the  old  forms.  Ship  followed  ship,  almost  unnoticed  in  the 
old  world,  where  the  minds  of  men  were  absorbed  in  the 
st niggle  Iwtween  king  and  parliament,  which  presently  burst 
into  war.  Twenty-one  thousand,  at  length,  sailing  toward 
the  beck  mi  ing  finger  of  Cape  Cod,  had  found  a  refuge  in 
Ma.—aehu-eus  bay.  They  spread  from  the  cna-t  into  the 
interior,  through  blazed  paths  of  the  forest,  led  by  Indian 
guides  to  rich  intervales  in  distant  valleys,  elustering  about 
water-falls  where  n'.-h  abounded  and  where  the  grain  could  be 
ground,  or  in  spots  where  there  seemed  a  chance  for  mining. 
What  determined  the  size  of  the  towns  was  always  conven- 

1  Eclwanl  A.  Freeman:  Introd.  to  American  InMitut.  History,  p.  lo. 
Herbert  -B.  Adams:  Germanic  Origin  of  >\  E.  Towns. 


211]       Samuel  Adams,  tJie  Man  of  the  Town-Meeting.  9 

ience  in  getting  to  the  Sunday  meeting;  for  to  church  all 
Were  obliged  to  go,  under  penalty  of  fine  or  severe  punish- 
ment. More  often  than  not  on  the  summit  of  some  hill  the 
meeting-house  was  built.  The  valleys,  heavy  with  forest, 
were  swampy  and  dangerous.  As  the  country  has  cleared, 
the  morasses  have  dried  and  the  valleys  have  become  the 
pleasant  plans;  but  in  many  an  old  town,  the  meeting-house 
remains  perehed  on  its  summit,  away  from  the  modern  dwell- 
ings which  it  has  lx>en  more  suitable,  at  length,  to  place  in 
the  1«>\\  land.  Where  the  meeting-house  is  with  the  dwell- 
ings, one  can  often  find,  hunting  among  the  huckleberry 
bushes  on  the  deserted  hill-top  close  by,  the  foundation  of 
the  first  temple,  reared  before  the  Indians  and  the  wolves 
were  gone.  About  in  the  territory,  never  so  far  away  that  it 
would  be  inconvenient  on  Sunday  to  go  to  meeting,  the  popu- 
lation spread  itself.  The  twenty-one  thousand  that  sought 
tin  wilderness  were  at  first  neglected,  in  good  part  lost  sight 
of.  Left  to  themselves,  each  group  of  inhabitants  bound 
about  the  meeting-house,  near  which  generally  rose 
the  school,  contrived,  for  the  regulation  of  all'aii •-  which 
interested  all  alike,  the  forms  which  came  most  handy,  and 
these  were  the  forms  in  England  to  so  large  an  extent 
crowded  out, — the  Folk-mote  with  its  accompaniments,  the 
local  self-government  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  days,  revived  with 
a  faithfulness  of  which  the  colonists  themselves  were  not  at 
all  conscious.  At  last  in  the  middle  of  the  last  century,  the 
mother  country  suddenly  became  aware  that  her  American 
children  had  grown  rich  and  powerful.  In  the  great  wars 
witli  France,  when  Louisburg,  and  at  last  Quebec,  were  cap- 
tured, and  England  became  mistress  of  the  continent,  the 
colonies  furnished  a  great  army,  who  marched  and  fought 
with  the  British  regulars,  and  helped  as  much  as  they  to  the 
victories  that  were  gained.  Their  vessels,  too,  were  upon 
every  sea.  On  the  coast  and  in  the  interior,  the  towns,  at  first 
so  feeble,  were  growing  large  and  rich.  "  They  must  be 
looked  to  more  closely,"  said  the  English  rulers.  "Their 


10  Samuel  Adams,  the  Man  of  the  Town-Mcdiny.       [212 

trade  must  be  regulated,  so  that  England  can  reap  an  advan- 

i'rom  it;  they  must  be  tux«l  to  help  pay  I'm-  these  great 

wars  we  have  been  waning  largely  on  their  account,"  and  so 

i  tin  -cries  of  events  that  brought,  in  '76,  the  freedom  of 

America. 

At  that  tim«',  in  Mas-achn«-tts  then  including  Maine,  and 
containing  -1(),00<)  white  inhabitants,  more  than  were  found 
in  any  other  American  colony,  there  were  more  than  two 
hundred  towns,  whose  constitution  is  thus  described  by  a 
writer  of  the  revolutionary  period:1  "Every  town  is  an 
incorporated  republic.  The  selectmen  by  their  own  author- 
ity, or  upon  the  application  of  a  certain  number  of  town-- 
men, issue  a  warrant  for  the  calling  of  a  town-meeting.  The 
warrant  mentions  the  business  to  be  engaged  in,  and  no  other 
can  be  legally  ex. -mted.  The  inhabitants  are  warned  to 
attend  ;  and  they  that  are  piv-ent,  though  not  a  quarter  or 
tenth  of  the  whole,  have  a  right  to  proceed.  They  choose  a 
lent  by  the  name  nf  Moderator,  who  regulates  the  pro- 
ceedings of  the  meeting.  Each  individual  has  an  equal 
liberty  of  delivering  his  opinion,  and  is  not  liable  to  be 
silenced  or  brow-beaten  by  a  richer  or  greater  townsman  than 
himself.  Kvcry  freeman  or  free-holder  gives  his  vote  or  not, 
and  for  or  against,  as  he  pleases;  and  each  vote  weighs 
equally,  whether  that  of  the  highest  or  lowest  inhabitant. 
.  .  .  All  the  Xew  England  towns  are  on  the  same  plan  in 
general." 

"A  Xew  England  town-meeting,"  says  E.  A.  Freeman,  "is 
essentially  the  same  thing  as  the  Folk-mote."2  Shall  we  find 
the  Folk-mote  in  the  other  colonies?  Turning  first  to  Vir- 
ginia,3 the  great  representative  colony  of  the  South,  as  ^1 
chnsetts  is  of  the  North,  in  the  eighteenth  century  we  find  here 
an  ordered  life,  though  the  heterogeneous  character  of  the 


1  Gordon :  History  of  Independence  of  U.  S.,  I,  262. 

-  Aim-r.  In>titut.  History,  p.  16. 
8  John  Esten  Cooke :  "  Virginia." 


213]       Samuel  Adams,  the  Man  of  the  Town-Meeting.          11 

colony  makes  the  task  of  description  a  less  simple  one  than  in 
the  case  of  her  Northern  sister.  Virginia  contains  173,000 
wh  ites,  and  120,000  blacks.  In  what  is  called  the  " Tidewater- 
re^ion,"  there  appears  at  the  top  of  society  an  aristocracy  of 
landed  proprietors,  a  society  constituted  after  the  model  exist- 
ing at  the  same  time  in  Hug  land,  and  not  at  all  reviving  the 
features  of  the  more  ancient  period,  as  was  done  in  Massachu- 
setts.1  The  law  of  primogeniture  being  rigidly  maintained, 
eaeli  o-reat  estate,  <•« ni-i>ting  often  of  thousands  of  acres, 
:  (1-  iii  <  a< -I i  generation  to  the  eldest  son,  his  brothers  and 
sisters  beiu^  slightly  portioned,  if  at  all.  There  are  indeed 
small  farmers  in  the  Tidewater-region,  a  class  springing  in 
part  from  unportioned  younger  sons,  in  part  from  later 
immigrants,  who  niv  at  a  disadvantage  as  to  getting  hold  of 
the  soil:  this  elass,  however,  is  unimportant  as  compared 
with  the  landed  niai:nah>.  with  whom  lies  all  social  pres- 
tige, and  for  the  most  part,  political  power. 

The  particular  form  into  which  society  in  Virginia  ar- 
ranges itself,  is  much  affected  by  the  special  industry  to 
which  the  colony  has  become  almost  exclusively  devoted,  the 
raising  of  tobacco.  On  the  great  estates  the  laborious  process 
of  producing  the  invariable  crop  can  be  most  conveniently 
left  to  the  hands  of  negroes.  Everything  favors  the  develop- 
ment of  slavery,  and  slaves  soon  come  to  make  up  nearly 
half  of  the  population.  In  a  condition  not  very  different 
from  that  of  the  slaves  are  the  indented  white  servants. 
These  are  penniless  immigrants,  sometimes  English  convicts 
or  paupers,  shipped  to  the  New  World  and  bound  out  for  a 
term  of  years  by  the  government,— sometimes  people  of  more 
respectable  antecedents,  who  in  return  for  their  passage- 
money  freely  give  themselves  into  practical  serfdom.  In 
these  circumstances,  labor  necessarily  falls  into  disrepute  :  a 
class  of  poor  whites  arises,  descendants  of  those  so  unfortu- 
nately placed  as  to  be  unable  to  obtain  land  or  of  those  who 

1  K.  A.  Freeman :  Amer.  Institut.  Hist.,  p.  17. 


1 2  Samuel  Adams,  the  Man  of  the  Town-Meeting.       [214 

lack  energy  to  do  so,  who  squat  on  the  plantations  in  out-of- 
the-way  -wamps  or  woods,  pu-h  into  the  wildern.  ~  :i- 
hunters  and  trappers,  or  tramp  as  roving  vagalnmds  from 
estate  i"  e-rate. 

In  striking  contract  with  Massachusetts,  there  is  in  Vir- 
ginia no  town-life.  Norfolk,  with  about  7,000  people,  is  the 
only  place  of  importance.  \Villiamsburg  has  no  con>e<|iiriice 
except  as  the  point  at  which  the  House  of  Burgesses  meets, 
and  the  seat  of  the  College  of  William  and  Mary.  The 
inhabitants  are  scattered  throughout  the  vast  counties,  with 
no  rallying-poim>,  but  the  manor-houses  of  the  planters.  Of 
manufacturing  of  any  kind  there  is  no  trace,  and  the  class  of 
honorable  merchants  is  almost  unknown'.  It  is  iudispensi- 
ble  to  each  great  plantation  that  it  >hould  be  accessible  from 
the  sea,  a  condition  ea>ily  supplied  through  the  magnificent 
streams  which  afford  path-  everywhere  into  the  interior  from 
the  Chesapeake.  Each  planter  has  his  own  wharf  and  ware- 
house, to  which  his  negroes  bring  yearly  at  harvest  the  _ 
tobacco-yield,  while  EnglMi  or  Yankee  ships,  freighted  with 
foreign  manufactures  to  be  given  in  exchange,  lie  ready  to 
•  •  it. 

The  typical  Virginian  at  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury was  devoted  to  the  English  king  and  church.  If  he 
possessed  overweening  family  pride,  extravagance,  and  con- 
tempt for  work,  he  had  also  the  splendid  virtues  of  a  cava- 
lier class,  generosity,  bravery  and  hospitality.  He  was  often 
highly  accomplished,  with  acquirements  and  graces  brought 
from  the  schools  of  England,  to  which  many  a  Virginia  boy 
was  sent;  or  if  that  opportunity  were  denied,  the  College  of 
William  and  Mary  was  quite  able  to  impart  an  elegant  cul- 
ture. Even  the  poor  whites,  forlorn  as  they  were  for  all 
purposes  of  peaceful,  well-ordered  society,  possessed  qualities 
which  fitted  them  admirably  to  be  frontiersmen  and  soldiers. 
Many  a  planter  could  claim  descent  from  historic  >t «•«•!<  :  and 
sometimes,  as  in  the  case  of  the  old  Lord  Fairfax,  who  estab- 
lished for  himself  a  broad  sylvan  domain  in  the  valley  of  the 


215]       Samuel  Adaiw,  the  Man  of  the  Town-Meeting.          13 

Shenandoah,  and  lived  there  like  the  banished  duke  of  "  As 
You  Like  It"  in  the  "Forest  of  Arden,"  the  blood  of  the 
Virginians  was  of  the  noblest. 

There  was,  however,  another  Virginia  than  that  of  the 
Tidewater-region.  Into  the  valley  between  the  Blue  Ridge 
and  the  Alleghanies,  and  even  farther  west,  just  before  the 
Revolution,  immigrants  were  beginning  to  press.  Part  of 
them  were  Germans,  a  rill  from  the  current  which  was  pour- 
ing into  Central  IVmisylvania;  part  were  Scotch  Irish,  kin- 
dred of  the  nun  who  defended  Londonderry  against  James 
II.  These  had  little  sympathy  or  share  with  the  Old 
Dominion.  The  (Irrmans  were  rigid  Lutherans  and  thor- 
oughly peasants ;  the  Scotch  Irish  were  of  no  higher  social 
rank  and  strict  Presbyterians.  The  cares  and  dangers  of 
frontier  lite  quite  absorbed  them.  If  their  representatives 
were  in  the  House  of  Burgesses,  there  is  little  trace  of  it. 
When  the  Revolution  had  once  fairly  begun,  indeed,  pastor 
Miihlenberg  led  his  flock  from  the  Shenandoah  valley  to 
battle  for  the  cause  of  the  colonies,  and  Daniel  Morgan  with 
his  stalwart  riflemen,  in  buckskin  and  fringe,  stood  from  first 
to  last  as  the  very  flower  of  the  American  troops,  by  the  side 
of  Washington;  but  these  frontiersmen  were  of  another  spirit 
than  their  eastern  neighbors. 

If  we  contrast  now  the  colonial  life  of  Virginia  with  that 
of  Massachusetts,  we  shall  find  some  marked  differences. 
The  isolation  of  the  great  estates  at  the  South  made  it  out  of 
the  question  for  the  men  to  come  together  as  in  the  compact 
communities  of  the  North ;  the  more  heterogeneous  character 
of  society  in  the  former  case,  moreover,  interfered  with  the 
disposition  to  come  together.  Instead,  therefore,  of  a  state 
made  up  of  small  democratic  communities,  within  each  one 
of  which  the  men,  gathered  in  town-meeting,  governed  them- 
selves, a  state  came  to  pass  the  people  of  which  had  little 
opportunity  or  desire  for  the  general  discussion  of  public 
measures ;  care  for  political  matters  was,  in  the  mass  of  men, 
very  slight,  from  the  fact  that  a  class  small  in  number  almost 


14  Samud  Adams,  11"  3[<in  of  th<  Town-Meeting.       [216 

monopolized  property  and  power.  The  territorial  mag- 
nates were  all-in-all.  In  the  House  of  Burgesses  at  AVil- 
liamsburg,  the  great  planters  eume  together  and  few  ln-id'-. 
Amonir  them,  indeed,  political  interest  was  keen  enough. 
Kadi  had  a  <rrcat  -take  in  the  country;  each  wa.-  a«-«-u>tomed 
to  power  and  fond  of  wielding  it.  In  thi<  aristocratic 
latnre  the  en-  nd  the  spirit  of  freedom  \-«-ry 

manifest.  The  royal  -ov. -rnors  found  the  body  often  intrac- 
table; constant  bickering  prevailed  between  them  and  the 
Assembly,  through  which  the  latter  learned  the  habit  of  call- 
in  ir  into  question  the  authority  of  the  kin<r,  and  also  came  to 
love  an  atmosphere  of  strife.  Hence,  when  the  mother-land 
grew  arbitrary,  none  were  more  prompt  than  the  House  of 
Burgesses  of  Virginia  to  call  the  kinjr  and  his  ministers  to 
account.  At  the  outbreak  of  war  they  came  quickly  to  the 
front.  America  took  its  leader  from  aimm^  them,  and  dur- 
ing the  tir-t  years  of  our  independence  Virginia  was  "the 
mother  of  pn -idcnte." 

In  the  New  England  Legislatures,  each  delegate,  in  no  wi-e 
superior  to  those  who  sent  him  in  wealth  or  portion,  stood 
f.»r  the  little  democracy,  the  Folk-mote,  the  town  that  >ent 
him.  He  was  not  his  own  man  except  in  so  far  a<  his  superior 
ability  or  character  made  his  town-men  «rive  way  to  him.  Il*- 
was  carefully  instructed  what  course  he  must  pursue;  was 
liable  to  sharp  cen-ure  if  he  went  against  the  wishes  of  his 
closely-watching  constituents,  and  each  year  must  submit  him- 
self anew  to  the  suffrages  of  his  townsmen,  who  promptly  con- 
signed him  to  private  life  if  his  course  had  been  disapproved, 

Then-  was  then  no  Folk-mote  in  Virginia.  In  all  of  the 
thirteen  colonies,  as  regards  this  proper  primordial  cell  of 
a  republican  body  politic,  it  existed  in  well-developed  form 
only  in  tl.  Kn<rland  town-meeting.  Of  the  group  of 

Southern  Colonies,  while  in  the  case  of  each  there  were 
peculiarities  of  constitution,1  as  regards  the  present  point 

1  B.  James  Ramage :    Local  Government  in  South  Carolina. 


217]       Samuel  Adams,  the  Man  of  the  Town-Meeting.          15 

Virginia  may  be  token  as  the  type.  Nor  in  the  Middle 
Colonies  is  the  case  much  different.  In  New  York  the 
Dutch  were  long  enough  in  possession  to  stamp  upon  the 
settlement  an  impress  not  at  all  democratic.  Along  the  Hud- 
son, the  patroons,  on  their  e-tates  fronting  sixteen  miles  on  the 
river  and  running  Lack  indefinitely,  had  established  a  kind  of 
feudal  M  stem,  which  the  German  settlers  who  came  later  into 
the  valley  of  the  Mohawk,  and  the  waifs  from  all  lands,  who 
with  the  English  occupied  the  neighborhood  of  Manhattan, 
did  little  to  modify.  In  Pennsylvania  and  Maryland,  the 
great  proprietaries  were  subordinate  monarchs  beneath  an 
English  suzerainty,  exercising  a  rule  over  a  population  con- 
taining many  element-  U  sides  English,  which  was  far  from 
favorable  to  democracy.  Throughout  the  length  and  breadth 
of  the  thirteen  colonies  then,  at  the  time  of  the  Revolution, 
New  Kni:land  stood  alone  in  having  restored  a  primitive 
liberty  which  had  been  superseded,  her  little  democracies 
governing  each  itself  after  a  fashion  for  which  there  was  no 
precedent  without  going  back  to  the  Folk-mote  of  a  remote 
day — to  a  time  before  the  kings  of  England  began  to  be 
arbitrary  and  before  the  people  became  indifferent  to  their 
birth-right. 

Have  New  Englanders  preserved  their  town-meeting? 
Thirteen  million,  or  about  one-quarter  of  the  inhabitants  of 
the  United  States,  are  believed  to  be  descendants  of  the  21,000, 
who,  in  the  dark  days  of  Stuart  domination,  came  from 
among  the  friends  of  Cromwell  and  Hampden,  to  people  the 
North-East.  In  large  proportion  they  have  forsaken  their 
old  seats,  following  the  parallels  of  latitude  along  the  lakes 
into  the  great  North- West,  and  now  at  length  across  the 
continent  to  California  and  Oregon.  At  the  beginning  of  the 
century,  Grayson  wrote  to  Madison  *  that  "  the  New  Eng- 
landers are  amazingly  attached  to  their  custom  of  planting  by 
townships."  So  it  has  always  been :  wherever  New  Eng- 

1  Bancroft :  Hist,  of  Constitution,  I.,  p.  181. 


16  Samuel  Adams,  the  Man  of  the  Toini-lfcdlnfj.       [218 

lander-  have  had  power  to  decide  a-  to  tin-  constitution  of  a 
forming  state,  it  h;us  had  at  the  luisis  the  township.  But  in 
the  immense  dilution  which  this  element  of  population  has 
constantly  undergone,  through  the  human  flood  from  all  land.-, 
which,  >ide  l>y  -ide  with  it,  has  poured  into  the  new  territo- 
ries, its  influence  has  of  necessity  been  often  greatly  weak- 
ened, and  the  form  of  the  township  has  been  changed  from 
the  original  pattern,  seldom  advantageously.1  In  New  Eng- 
land itself,  moreover,  a  similar  cause  has  modified  some- 
what tin1  old  circumstances.  While  multitudes  of  the  ancient 
stock  have  to/.-aken  the  granite  hills,  their  pla<-< -  have  been 
supplied  by  a  Celtic  race,  energetic  and  prolific,  whose  teeming 
families  throng  city  and  village,  threatening  to  outnumber 
the  Yankee  element,  depleted  as  it  has  been  by  the  emigration 
of  so  many  of  its  most  vigorous  children.  To  these  new- 
comers must  be  added  now  the  French  Canadian-,  who,  follow- 
ing the  track  of  their  warlike  ancestors  down  the  river-val- 
leys, have  come  by  thousands  into  the  manufacturing  towns 
and  into  the  woods,  an  industrious  but  unprogressive  race, 
good  hands  in  the  mills  and  marvellously  dextrous  at  wield- 
ing the  axe.  Whatever  may  be  said  of  the  virtues  of  these 
new-comers,  and,  of  course,  a  long  list  could  be  made  out 
for  them,  they  have  not  been  trained  to  Anglo-Saxon  self- 
government.  We  have  seen  the  origin  of  the  Folk-mote 
far  back  in  Teutonic  antiquity.  As  establidied  in  New  Eng- 
land, it  is  a  revival  of  a  most  ancient  thing.  The  institution 
is  uncongenial  to  any  but  Teutonic  men;  the  Irishman  and 
Frenchman  are  not  at  home  in  it,  and  cannot  accustom  them- 
selves to  it,  until,  as  the  new  generations  come  forward,  they 
take  on  the  characteristics  of  the  people  among  whom  they 
have  come  to  cast  their  lot.  At  present,  in  most  old  New 


1 S.  A.  Galpin  :  Walker's  Statistical  Atlas  of  U.  S.,  II,  10.  Albert  Shaw : 
Local  Government  in  IllinnN.  K.  W.  Bemis:  Local  Government  in  Michi- 
gan and  the  North-west.  E.  R.  L.  Gould :  Local  Government  in  Pennsyl- 


219]       Samuel  Adams,  ihe  Man  of  the  Town-Meeting.          17 

England  towns,  we  find  an  element  of  the  population  num- 
bering hundreds,  often  thousands,  who  are  sometimes  quite 
inert,  allowing  others  to  decide  all  things  for  them;  some- 
times voting  in  droves  in  an  unintelligent  way  as  some 
whipper-in  may  direct;  sometimes  in  unreasoning  partisan- 
ship following  through  thick  and  thin  a  cunning  demagogue, 
quite  careless  how  the  public  welfare  may  suffer  by  his  com- 
ing to  the  front. 

Still  another  circumstance  which  threatens  the  Folk-mote 
is  the  multiplication  of  cities.  When  a  community  of  moder- 
ate si/r  \\hich  has  gone  forward  under  its  town-meeting,  at 
length  increases  so  far  as  to  be  entitled  to  a  city  charter,  the 
day  is  commonly  hailed  by  ringing  of  bells  and  salutes  of 
cannon.  Hut  the  assuming  of  a  city  charter  has  been 
declared  to  be  "an  almost  complete  abnegation  of  practical 
democracy.  The  people  cease  to  govern  themselves ;  once  a 
year  they  choose  those  who  are  to  govern  for  them.  Instead 
of  the  town-meeting  discussions  and  votes,  one  needs  now  to 
spend  only  ten  minutes,  perhaps,  in  a  year.  No  more  listen- 
ing to  long  debates  about  schools,  roads,  and  bridges.  One 
has  only  to  drop  a  slip  of  paper,  containing  a  list  which 
some  one  has  been  kind  enough  to  prepare  for  him,  into  a 
box,  and  he  has  done  his  duty  as  a  citizen." l  In  the  most 
favorable  circumstances,  the  mayor  and  common-council,  rep- 
resenting the  citizens,  do  the  work  for  them,  while  individ- 
uals are  discharged  from  the  somewhat  burdensome,  but  so 
educating  and  quickening  duties  of  the  Folk-mote.  As  yet 
the  way  has  not  been  discovered  through  which  in  an  Ameri- 
can city,  the  primordial  cell  of  our  liberty  may  be  preserved 
from  atrophy. 

BOSTON  TOWN. 

If  one  wishes  to  study  the  American  Folk-mote,  the  Town- 
meeting,  with  care,  he  will  turn  then  to  some  town  of  New 

1  New  York  Nation:  May  29,  1866. 

2 


18  Samuel  Adams,  the  Man  of  the  To>m-M.  ,  ///,'/.       [i>  Ji  > 

England.  To  find  a  town  at  it-  mo-t  characteristic  stair'1,  ho 
will  not,  for  reasons  that  have  been  mentioned,  take  it  as  it 
stand-  at  present  :  nor,  on  the  other  hand,  will  it  be  well  to 
go  back  to  th<'  earlic-t  period,  when  things  were  forming. 
The  New  Knirlriiul  town  i-  l*-t  presented  at  an  intermediate 
point  when  it  has  had  time  to  Ix-como  fully  developed,  and 
before  the  causes  have  begun  to  <•  hieh  have  la 

changed   it.     The  period  of  the    Involution,  in  fart,   is  the 
epoch  that  must  l>e  selected;  and  the  town  <»f  towns  in  whieh 
ihing  that   is  most  distinctive  appears  most  plainly,  is 
Boston. 

•own.   governed    by    its    Folk-mote,   alnm-t 

from  it.-  foundation  until  L822,  more  than  one  hundred  and 

eighr.  '  tin-  inhabitants  numlwred  forty 

thousand,  it   reluctantly  l>ocame  a  city,  giving  up  its  town- 

ngs  because  they  had  grown  n  lar^e  as  to  be  unnia: 
able, — the  peop!«-  --hoosing  a  mayor  and  oommon^xmncil  to 

do  the  public  bu-iness  for  th«  ad  of  doing  it  th<  ni- 

-.      The   rcconU  of  the  town  of  Boston,   carefully   piv- 
1   from   the  earliest  times,  lie  (.pen  to  public  in-pectioii 

in     tllC    Office    Of    tile    eity-elerk.        Whoever    pores    over    then- 

1-,  on  ihe  yellow  paper,  in  the  faded  ink,  as  it  came 
from  the  pen-  of  the  ancient  town-clerks,  will  find  that  for 
the  lir-t  hundred  years,  tie  ipied  lor  the  m«>-t 

part   with   their  local  -.      How  the  famous  cow-paths 

•hroiiM-h  the  ph:t-«-  ,,f  their  evolution — footway,  count ry- 
hiLili-road. — until  at  length  they  become  tl  -  and 

receive  dignified  names.  What  ground  shall  be  taken  for 
buryinji-places,  and  how  it  shall  be  fenced  as  the  little  settle- 
ment gradually  covers  the  whole  peninsula, — how  the  N«.k, 
then  ..n-umptive  looking  neck,  not  goitred  by  a  ward 

or  two  of  brick  and   mortar-coven-d   territory,  may  be  pro- 
tected, so  that  it  may  not  be  guillotined  by  some  sharp  north- 
easter,— what  precautions  shall  be  taken  against  the  - 
small-pox, — who  shall   see  to  it  that  dirt  shall  not  be  thrown 
into   the   town-dock, — that    inquiry   shall    be   made   whether 


221]       Samuel  Adams,  the  Man  of  the  Toum-Meeting.          19 

Latin  may  not  be  better  taught  in  the  public-schools, — such 
topics  as  these  are  considered.  The  town-clerks  always  make 
a  particular  point  of  describing  the  "  visitation  of  the  schools." 
The  selectmen  invite  every  year,  in  May,  a  long  list,  some- 
times forty  or  fifty,  comprising  the  great  people  of  the  Pro- 
vince, with  any  notable  strangers  there  may  be  in  town,  to  be 
present  at  the  inspection.  For  the  most  part,  the  record  is 
tedious  and  unimportant  detail  for  a  modern  reader,  though 
now  ami  then  in  an  address  to  the  sovereign,  or  a  document 
that  implies  all  is  not  harmony  between  the  town  and  royal 
governor,  the  Imri/.ni  broadens  a  little.  But  soon  after  the 
middle  of  the  eighteenth  century,  the  record  largely  changes. 
William  Cooper,  at  length,  begins  his  service  of  forty-nine 
years  as  town-clerk,  starting  out  in  1761,  with  a  bold,  round 
hand,  whirh  gradually  becomes  faint  and  tremulous  as  the 
M -riter  descends  into  old  age.  One  may  well  turn  over  the 
mu<ty  pages  here  with  no  slight  feeling  of  awe,  for  it  is  the 
record,  made  at  the  moment,  of  one  of  the  most  memorable 
struggles  of  human  history,  that  between  the  little  town  of 
11  on  the  one  hand,  and  George  III,  with  all  the  power 
of  England  at  his  back,  on  the  other. 

Massachusetts  was  unquestionably  the  leader  in  the  Revo- 
lution. "  The  ring-leading  colony,"  Lord  Camden  called  it 
at  the  time.  Says  the  latest  English  writer:  "The  spirit 
driving  the  colonies  to  separation  from  England,  a  principle 
attracting  and  conglobing  them  into  a  new  union  among 
themselves, — how  early  did  this  spirit  show  itself  in  the  New 
England  colonies?  It  was  not  present  in  all  the  colonies. 
1 1  was  not  present  in  Virginia ;  but  when  the  colonial  discon- 
tents burst  into  a  flame,  then  was  the  moment  when  Virginia 
went  over  to  New  England,  and  the  spirit  of  the  Pilgrim 
Fathers  found  the  power  to  turn  the  offended  colonists  into  a 
new  nation."1  Leckv  too  declares:2  "The  Central  and 


1  Professor  J.  K.  Seeley :  "The  Expansion  of  England,"  pp.  154-155. 
'Hist,  of  XYIIIth  Century,  III,  p.  386. 


20  Samuel  Adams,  the  Man  of  the  Town-Meeting. 

Southern  colonies  long  hc-itaied  to  follow  New  Kn^land. 
M .-.--  ••;';-•  fcfe  had  thrown  hcr>clf  with  iieivc  ciicriry  into  the 
conflict  and  HM.M  drew  the  other  provinces  in  her  wake." 
After  the  iir-t  year  of  war.  indeed,  the  soil  of  N'.-w  Kn»rland, 
as  compared  with  the  Centre  and  Smith,  suffered  little  from 
the  scourge  of  hostile  military  occupation.  Her  >aeritices 
however  did  not  cease.  Tin-re  is  no  \\ay  of  determining  how 
many  NYw  Knirlaud  militia  took  the  field  during  the  strife ; 
the  multitude  was  certainly  vast.  The  figures,  however,  as 
regards  the  more  regular  levies  have  been  preserved  and  are 
significant.1  With  a  population  comprising  scarcely  more 
than  one-third  of  the  inhabitants,  of  the  thirteen  colonies, 
New  Kuirland  furnished  118,2.r>l  of  the  2:J1.7!»1  Continental 
troops  that  tiirund  in  the  war.  Ma>.- a»  husetts  alone  fur- 
ni>hed  <  17, 907,  more  than  one-quarter  of  the  entire  numher. 
There  resistance  to  Jiritish  encroachment  U-^an:  from  thence 
disail'r<-tion  to  Hritain  was  spread  abroad.  As  Ma.-sachu.-«-tts 
l«-il  the  thirteen  colonies,  tin-  town  of  Boston  led  Ma>.-achu- 
setts.2  The  mini.Mer-  of  George  III  recojr nixed  thi.-  leader- 
ship and  attaek«il  Ho-ton  first.  So  thoroughly  di<l  the  t 
of  revolt  centre  here  that  the  English  pamphleteers,  seeking 
to  uphold  the  ^ovrrument-e;  ak  sometimes  not  so 

much  of  American-,  or   .\Y\v    Mn-_: landers,  or,  indeed,  men  of 
M;i— achusetts,  as  of  Bostonians,  as  if  it  \\«-re  with  the  ]>eople 
of  that  one  little  town  that  the  ti«rht  was  to  be  waifd.     Bos- 
ton led  the  tliirtccu  colonies.      Who  led  the  town  of  JJoston? 
He  certainly  o!ii:l,t  to  be  a  menioral)le  figure  in  the  stn:. 
At   the  date  of  the  Stamp   Act,   17»i">,   the  population   of 
n  wa<  not  far  from  18,000,  in  vast  majority  of  Knnflish 
blood;  though  a  few  families  of  IIu«ruenot>,  like  the   Fan- 
euils,   the   Bowdoins,   the   lieveres,   and   the    Molineux,    had 


Mliklreth,  111,441. 

'"This  province  began  it — I  niitrht  say  this  town  [Boston] — for  here  the 
arch-rebels  f<>nue<l  their  scheme  long  ago."  Gen.  Gage  to  Lord  Dart- 
mouth, quoted  in  Diary  and  Letters  of  Thomas  IIutchiu>on,  p.  16. 


223]       Samuel  Adams,  the  Man  of  the  Town-Meeting.          21 

strengthened  the  stock  by  being  crossed  with  it,  and  there 
was  no\\  and  then  a  Scotchman  or  an  Irishman.  As  the 
Bostniiiaiis  were  of  one  race,  so  in  vast  majority  they  were  of 
one  faith,  Independents  of  Cromwell's  type,  though  there 
were  Episcopalians,  and  a  few  Quakers  and  Baptists.  The 
town  drew  its  life  from  the  sea,  to  which  all  its  industry  was 
more  or  less  closely  n -la ted.  Hundreds  of  men  were  afloat 
much  of  the  time,  captains  or  before  the  mast,  leaving  their 
and  children  in  the  town,  but  themselves  on  shore  only 
at  interval.-,  from  the  most  enterprising  voyages.  Of  the 
landsmen,  a  large  proportion  were  ship-builders.  The 
stau  nehest  crafts  that  -ailed  slid  by  the  dozen  down  the  ways 
of  the  B«»stnn  yards.  New  Ki inland  needed  a  great  fleet,  hav- 
in-  as  -lie  did  a  good  part  of  the  carrying-trade  of  the 
thim-en  colonies,  with  that  of  the  West  Indies  also.  Another 
industry  less  salutary  was  the  distilling  of  rum  ;  and  much 
of  this  went  in  the  .-hips  of  Boston  and  Newport  men  to  the 
coast  of  Africa,  to  be  exchanged  for  slaves.  It  was  a  different 
world  from  ours,  and  should  be  judged  by  different  standards. 
Besides  the  branches  mentioned,  there  was  little  manufac- 
turing in  town  or  country ;  the  policy  of  the  mother-country 
was  to  discourage  colonial  manufactures;  everything  must  be 
made  in  England,  the  colonies  being  chiefly  valuable  from  the 
selfish  consideration  that  they  could  be  made  to  afford  a  profit- 
able market  for  the  goods.  In  the  interior,  therefore,  the 
people  were  all  farmers,  bringing  their  produce  to  Boston,  and 
taking  thence  when  they  went  home  such  English  goods  as 
they  needed.  Hence  the  town  was  a  great  mart.  The  mer- 
chants were  numerous  and  rich ;  the  distilleries  fumed ;  the 
shipyards  rattled ;  the  busy  ships  went  in  and  out,  and  the 
country  people  flocked  in  to  the  centre. 

Though  Boston  lost  before  the  Revolution  the  distinction 
of  being  the  largest  town  in  America,  it  remained  the  intel- 
lectual head  of  the  country.  Its  common-schools  gave  every 
child  a  good  education,  and  Harvard  College,  scarcely  out  of 
sight,  and  practically  a  Boston  institution,  gave  a  training 


22  Samuel  Adams,  the  Man  of  the  Town-Meeting.       [224 

hardly  inferior  to  that  of  the  European  universities  of  the 
day.  At  the  bottom  of  the  social  scale  were  tin-  neirro  slaves. 
Tin-  newspapers  have  many  advertisements  of  slaves  for  -ale, 
and  of  runaways  sought  by  their  masters.  Slaverv.  how.  \ «  r, 
was  far  on  tin-  wane,  and  soon  after  tin-  Involution  became 
extinirui-hed.  The  negroes  were  for  the  m<^t  part  -ervants in 
families,  not  workmen  at  trades,  and  BO  exercised  little  influence 
in  the  way  of  brinjrin«r  labor  into  disrepute. 

A-   the  -laves  were  at  the  bottom.  BO  at  the  i  •  •ii-ty 

were  the  mi!  :  of  fine  force,  ability,  and  edu- 

N"  other  -iieh  career  a<  the  mini-try  atl'onled  was 
open  in  thoM-  day-  to  ambitious  men.  Year  by  year  the  best 
mm  of  each  ( 'am bridge  class  went  into  the  mini-try,  and  the 
best  of  them-  :-  the  Bo-ton  pulpit.  .Jonathan 

Mayhew,  Andrew  Kliot,  Samuel  Cooper,  Charles  Channo  v, 
Mather  r>\l«--, — all  were  characters  of  mark,  true  to  the 
Puritan  standards,  jr'-nenilly,  as  regards  faith,  eloquent  in 
their  ofh'ce,  friends  and  advisers  of  the  political  leaders,  them- 
selves oft.  ii  political  leaders,  foremost  in  the  public  HIM  • 
and  active  in  private.  T-ually  these  mini~t«  r-  were  <_rrave 
men.  the  traditions  of  the  Province  imposing  upon  them  a 
:ry  «.t'  dfportiuent  which  would  seem  t«.  n-  har-h;  but 
they  had  a  Denial  -ide  which  oui^ht  not  to  be  overlooked. 
"Don't  you  recollc<-t,"  writes  John  Adams  to  his  wife,  recall- 
ing a  reminiscence  of  a  small-pox  scare,1  "Dr.  Byles'  benedic- 
tion to  me  when  I  \\a-  inoculated?  J  lay  lolling  on  my  bed 
with  half  a  do/en  youiijr  fellow-  a.-  la/y  as  niy-clf.  all  wait- 
ing and  wishing  for  symptoms  and  erupt  ions,  when  all  of  a 
sudden  appeared  at  the  door  the  reverend  Doctor  with  his 
fan-,  many-curled  \\  i-.  and  pontifical  air  and  jrait. 
The  clergy  <(f  thi-  town  onjrht,  upon  this  occasi" 
adoj>t  the  benediction  of  the  Komish  clergy,  and  when  ~\ve 
enter  the  apartment  of  the  -ick,  to  -ay  in  the  foreign  pro- 
nunciation, "  I';t\  te.-uui !"  These  words  are  spoken  by  for- 


1  Philadelphia.  .     Adams  told  this  same  story  to  young 

Josiah  Quincy  in  1  ^1.     '  Figures  of  the  Past,"  p.  70. 


225]       Samuel  Adams,  the  Man  of  the  Town- Meeting. .         23 

eigners  as  the  doctor  pronounced  them,  Pox  take  'em  ! "  It 
is  a  pleasant  tradition,  too,  that  has  been  handed  down  of 
tliis  merry  old  Tory,  that  when  he  was  put  under  guard  by 
the  patriots,  finding  that  the  sentinel,  a  simple  bumpkin, 
wMied  to  go  away,  Dr.  Byles  kindly  offered  to  pace  the 
brat  for  him;  whereupon  the  soldier  gave  up  musket  and 
accoutrements,  and  the  doctor  tramped  back  and  forth  with 
his  piece  at  the  shoulder,  serenely  nodding  to  Whig  and 
T«>rv,  as  he  kept  guard  over  himself.  Nor  is  Dr.  Byles  the 
hero  of  all  the  good  stories  that  have  come  down  of  the  revo- 
lutionary  parsons. 

"Scip,"  said  Dr.  (  hauncey  to  his  old  negro,  turning 
te.-tily  from  the  writing  of  a  sermon,  "What  do  you  want?" 
4k  Want  a  new  coat,  Massa."  'k  Well,  ask  Mrs.  Chauncey  to 
trive  you  an  old  one  of  mine."  "  Nebber  do  in  de  world, 
Ma-sa,  for  old  Scip  to  wear  a  black  coat.  If  I  go  walking 
on  de  Neek  Saturday,  Dr.  Cooper  ask  me  to  preach  for  him, 
Mire."  The  doctor  burst  into  a  laugh,  told  Scip  he  might 
have  a  e«»at  of  all  the  colors  of  the  rainbow,  and  went 
strai^lit  <»ut,  with  cocked  hat  and  gold-headed  cane,  to  tell  the 
joke  at  the  expense  of  his  neighbor,  who  had  the  reputation 
of  being  rather  indiscriminate  in  his  invitations.1 

Together  with  the  ministers,  the  merchants  were  a  class  of 
inilnence.  Nothing  could  be  bolder  than  the  spirit  in  those 
days  <>f  l>n-t<>n  commerce.  In  ships  built  at  the  yards  of  the 
to\\n,  the  Yankee  crews  went  everywhere  through  the  world. 
Timber,  tobacco,  tar,  rice,  from  the  Southern  colonies,  wheat 
from  Maryland,  sugar  and  molasses  from  the  West  Indies, 
sought  the  markets  of  the  world  in  New  England  craft. 
The  laws  of  trade  were  complicated  and  oppressive;  but 
every  skipper  was  more  or  less  a  smuggler,  and  knew  well 
how  to  brave  or  evade  authority.  Wealth  flowed  fast  into 
the  pockets  of  the  Boston  merchants,  who  built  and  fur- 
nished fine  mansions,  walked  King  Street  in  gold  lace  and 

1  Tudor's  Life  of  Otis,  p.  449. 


24         .  Samuel  Adams,  the  Man  of  the  Tvum-Meeting.       [226 

fine  ruffles,  or  sat  at  home,  as  John  Hancock  is  descril>cd,  in 
"a  n-<!  velvet  cap,  within  which  was  one  of  fine  linen,  the 
edge  of  this  turned  up  over  the  velvet  one  two  or  three 
inches.  He  wore  a  lilue  damask  gown  lined  with  silk,  a 
white  plaited  stock,  a  white  silk  embroidered  waistcoat,  black 
silk  small-clothes,  white  silk  stockings,  and  red  morocco 
dippers."  It  is  all  still  made  real  to  us  in  the  superb  por- 
traits of  Copley, — the  merchants  sitting  in  their  carved 
chairs,  while  a  chart  of  distant  seas  unrolled  on  the  table,  or 
a  gliinp-e  through  a  richly  curtained  window  at  the  hack,  at 
a  busy  wharf  or  a  craft  under  full  -ail,  hints  at  the  employ- 
ment that  has  lifted  the  men  to  wealth  and  consequence. 

Below  the  merchant-,  the  class  of  workmen  formed  a  body 
most  energetic.  Dealing  with  the  tough  oak  that  was  to  be 
>h:;ped  into  storm-defying  hulls,  twisting  the  cordage  that 
must  stand  the  strain  of  antie  in  and  tropic  hurricane,  forg- 
ing anchors  that  must  hold  off  the  lee-shores  of  all  tempes- 
tuous seas, — this  wa-  work  to  bring  out  vigor  of  muscle,  and 
also  of  mind  and  temper.  The  nmlkers  wen-  bold  politi* 
and  have  given  perhaps  to  political  nomenclature  one  of  the  Ix-st 
known  terms.  The  rope-walk  hands  were  energetic  to  turbu- 
lence, courting  the  brawls  with  the  soldiers  which  led  to  the 
Boston  massacre.  It  must  be  said,  too,  that  the  taverns  throve. 
New  Kugland  rum  was  very  plentiful,  the  cargo  of  many  a 
ship  that  pas-ed  the  ''Outer  Light,"  of  many  a  town-man 
and  high  private  who  came  to  harsh  words  and,  perhaps, 
ti-ticutl>  in  Pudding  Lane  or  Dock  Square.  The  prevailing 
tone  of  the  town,  however,  was  decent  and  grave.  The 
churches  were  thronged  on  Sundays  and  at  Thursday  lecture 
as  they  have  not  Keen  since.  All  el as.-es  were  readers  ;  the 
book-sellers  fill  whole  columns  in  the  newspapers  with  their 
li-t- ;  there  are  books  on  sale  and  in  the  circulating  libraries, 
the  Ke.-t  then  being  in  all  departments  of  literature.  The 
five  newspapers  the  people  may  be  said  to  have  edited  them- 
selves. Instead  of  the  impersonal  articles  of  a  modern  jour- 
nal, the  space  in  a  sheet  of  the  Revolution,  after  thy  news 


227]       Samud  Adams,  the  Man  of  the  Town-Meeting.          25 

and  advertisements,  was  occupied  by  letters,  in  which  "  A 
Chatterer,"  "  A.  Z.,"  or  more  often  some  classic  character, 
"Sagittarius,"  "Vinclex,"  "Philanthrop,"  "Valerius  Pop- 
lieola,"  "  Nov-Anglus,"  or  "  Massachusettensis,"  belabors 
AVhijr  or  Tory,  according  to  his  own  stripe  of  politics, — the 
champion  sometimes  appearing  in  a  rather  Chinese  fashion, 
stilted  up  on  high  rhetorical  soles,  and  padded  out  with 
pompous  period  and  excessive  classic  allusion,  but  often  terse, 
bold,  and  well-armed  from  the  arsenals  of  the  best  political 
thinkers. 

Of  course  the  Folk-mote  of  such  a  town  as  this  would  have 
spirit  and  interest.  Wrote  a  Tory  in  those  days:1  "The 
town-meeting  at  Boston  is  the  hot-bed  of  sedition.  It  is 
there  that  all  their  dangerous  insurrections  are  engendered; 
it  is  there  that  the  flame  of  discord  and  rebellion  was  first 
lighted  up  and  disseminated  over  the  provinces;  it  is  there- 
fore great  I  v  to  be  wished  that  Parliament  may  rescue  the 
loyal  inhabitants  of  that  town  and  province  from  the  merci- 
leflB  hand  of  an  ignorant  mob,  led  on  and  inflamed  by  self- 
interested  and  profligate  men."  Have  more  interesting  a.-.-em- 
blies  ever  taken  place  in  the  history  of  the  world  than  the 
Boston  town-meetings?  Out  of  them  grew  the  independence 
of  the  United  States,  and  what  more  important  event  has  ever 
occur  red? 

The  great  administration  of  Pitt  had  come  to  an  end. 
France  was,  and  deserved  to  be,  at  his  feet  in  disgrace.  Canada 
was  lost  to  the  fleur-de-lis;  the  iron  cross  from  the  market- 
place of  Louisburg  had  come  as  a  trophy  to  New  England, 
to  this  day,  above  the  door  of  the  Harvard  library,  the  evi- 
dence of  the  good  service  the  provincials  had  done.  They 
had  aided  well  the  great  minister,  and  the  young  general  who 
went  down  in  the  death-grapple  with  Montcalm.  England 
was  loaded  with  glory,  but  also  with  debt.  "  No  more  than 


^'Sagittarius,"  quoted  by  Frothingham :    "Sam.  Adams'  Regiments," 
Atlantic  Monthly,  Nov.  1803. 


26  Samud  Adams,  the  Man  of  the  Town-Meeting.       [228 

fair."  said  the  mini-ter-.  and  with  justice,  "that  the  colonists, 
M!IO  derive  much  Advantage  from  this,  .-hould  help  pay  the 
deht."  So  Parliament,  with  little  thought.  p:-.s-< d  the  Stamp 
Act.  that  every  doeunn-nt  of  a  nature  at  all  formal,  every 
deed,  receipt,  com;  -hould  have  on  the  corner  a  certain 

stamp,  to  be  bought  for  a  few  pence  of  the  government.  In 
all  probability  the  colonies  eonld  have  Ix-en  brought  to  pay 
handsomely,  if  they  had  been  left  to  their  own  1'ree  aetion. 
Tin-  vote  in  Parliament  wa-  taken  late  at  night;  the  benches 
were  thin;  the  few  members  present  yawning  for  bed,  glad 
to  di-po-e  of  the  -mail  all'air  and  tini-h  the  >(->inn,  no  one 
apparently  aware  that  the  act  was  eritieal.  It  has  l>een  ealle<l 
one  of  the  mo-t  momentou-  legislative  ads  that  ever  to.»k  place, 
.lame-  ()ti-  was  the  man  who,  now  that  Parliament  forgot, 
stood  up  to  remind  it  of  an  old  privilege  of  Kn^lishmen. 
"No  taxation  without  representation,"  he  said.  "Aim-riea 
has  no  representative  in  Parliament;  you  cannot  legally  tax 
11-  without  our  consent."  That  became  presently  the  cry 
throughout  the  thirte.-n  (•••Ionics;  and,  in  the  mother-country 
.  no -mailer  men  than  the  magnificent  Pitt,  Lord  ( 'ain- 
dcii.  tin-  tir-t  of  Knglish  lawyers,  and  1  Jarre,  the  comrade  of 
\\"olfe,  said  that  thecoloni-ts  were  (juite  ri^ht.  Hut  the  kin_ir, 
the  mini.-ter-,  and  a  majority  of  Parliament  declared  that  all 
antiquated  and  sup<r>ed<d.  "Leeds.  JJirminiiham,  Man- 

r.  three-fourths  of  Mn-land,  indeed,  had  no  ropmen- 
tatives  in  Parliament,  yet  they  were  taxed.  How  forth- 
pnttin«r  i«»r  that  ini'erior  class  of  people,  our  colonists,  to  set 
up  a  en*  over  a  state  of  things  with  which  Englishmen  were 
-ati-tied!  If  there  was  no  formal  representation,  they  w<  re 
virtually  represented."  *' Tin-re  is  no  sueh  thing,"  said  the 
IJo-ion  leader-,  UM  virtual  representation.  If  Leeds,  P»ir- 
mingham,  Manche-tcr.  and  other  great  cities  are  not  repre- 

1.  they  ought  to  l>e.  Either  let  us  send  representatives 
to  Parliament,  or  let  our  AssemMii-s  tax  08."  "  I  rejoice  that 
America  has  resiste«l,"  thundered  the  wonderful  Pitt.  "Six 
millions  of  freemen  so  dead  to  all  feelings  of  liberty  as  volun- 


229]       Samuel  Adams,  the  Man  of  the  Town-Meeting.          27 

tarily  to  submit  to  be  slaves,  would  be  fit  instruments  to  make 
slaves  of  the  rest."  As  he  spoke  America  took  courage  to  do 
what  otherwise  she  would  scarcely  have  ventured  upon.  The 
voice  of  the  most  powerful  of  subjects  shook  all  England  also. 
The  king,  however,  was  the  very  type  of  set  purpose;  the 
House  of  Lords  stood  at  his  side  almost  to  a  man ;  in  the 
Commons,  the  servile,  corrupt  majority  were  the  "king's 
friends;"  so  that  although  the  Stamp  Act,  for  expediency's 
sake,  wa<  repealed,  Parliament  accompanied  the  repeal  with  a 
Declaratory  Act,  that  it  was  competent  to  legislate  for  the 
colonies  in  all  eases  whatsoever. 

When  this  determination  was  announced,  James  Otis,  who, 
from  leader  in  Boston  town-meetings,  had  become  conspicuous 
in  the  Assembly,  thought  it  right  to  yield.  It  is  wrong,  he 
said,  the  ground  tak« -n  by  the  Declaratory  Act,  but  we  must 
submit  to  what  Parliament  ordains;  but  others  were  coming 
to  the  front  of  clearer  views  and  stronger  determination. 
Presently  from  the  Massachusetts  Assembly  came  a  statement 
of  what  were  felt  to  be  the  colonial  rights,  in  which  the  old 
claim,  "No  taxation  without  representation,"  was  reasserted, 
and  a  step  or  two  taken  in  advance  of  that  position.  It  was, 
indeed,  hinted,  and  not  obscurely,  that  the  claim  of  Parlia- 
ment to  a  right  to  legislate  for  the  colonies  was  wrong  in 
other  respects  besides  matters  of  taxation;  that  each  colony, 
while  owing  allegiance  to  the  King,  like  all  parts  of  the 
British  empire,  had  yet,  in  its  General  Court,  a  parliament  of 
its  own,  and  that  the  Lords  and  Commons  at  Westminster 
were  utterly  without  jurisdiction  beyond  the  sea.  Presently 
after  this  the  Massachusetts  Assembly  caused  to  be  prepared 
a  "Circular  Letter,"  to  be  sent  to  the  legislatures  of  the  other 
colonies,  in  which  the  ground  taken  was  explained,  with  the 
reasons  for  it,  and  an  invitation  conveyed  to  each  colony  in 
turn,  to  state  in  reply  what  seemed  to  it  reasonable  in  the 
matter.  In  England,  Parliament  promptly  condemned  the 
course  of  Massachusetts,  demanding  that  the  Assembly  should 
rescind  the  "Circular  Letter,"  a  demand  which  the  Assembly 


28  Samuel  Adams,  the  Man  of  the  Town-Meeting.       [230 

met  at  once  by  a  refusal,  tin-  vote  standing  92  to  17.  Parlia- 
ment, carrying  out  the  principles  of  the  Declaratory  Act.  laid 
taxes  upon  glass,  paper,  paints,  and  tea;  that  the  collection 
might  certainly  he  enforced,  and  the  rising  spirit  of  discontent 
in  Boston  be  effectually  checked,  -hips  of  \var  were  -rationed 
in  the  harbor,  and  the  1  1th  and  2!>th  regiments  established  in 
the  to\vn. 

The  di-content  was  by  no  mean-  confined  to  Massaehu- 
Connecticut,  Rhode  I-land,  and  New  Hampshire,  elo-«-l\- 
dependent,  took  their  tone  from  her.  In  New  York  v, 
party  prepared  to  go  all  lengths  with  the  most  strenuous.  -iep 
t'"r  Mep ;  there  wa-  a  partv,  too,  better  ])laeed  a-  regards 
wealth  and  pn-itimi,  the  rich  merchants,  the  Kpisropalians 
gem-rally,  the  holders  of  the  great  feudal  estates,  the  Dutch 
fanners  and  recent  German  settlers,  who  were  either  actively 
loyal  to  the  crown  or  quite  apathetic.  In  Pennsylvania, 
there  were  strong  opposers  of  the  Knglish  policy,  who-c  lead- 
ing representative,  now  that  Franklin  was  absent  in  England, 
was  John  Dickinson,  very  famous  through  the  "  Farmer's 
Letter-/'  well  iva-onrd  papers  iii  which  was  given  a  popular 
explanation  of  the  uncoii-titutionality  of  government  acts; 
the  powerful  sect  of  Quakers,  however,  as  the  trouble  deep- 
ened, set  themselves  against  r«-i-tanee  to  the  powers  that  were, 
and  the  ( lermans  felt  little  interest.  Passing  to  the  South, 
Virginia  was  all  alive.  The  aristocracy  of  great  tobacco- 
planters,  who  held  the  power,  full  of  vigor  and  trained  to 
struggle  in  the  long-eon  tinned  disputes  with  different  royal 
governor-,  -tood  most  stubbornly  against  P>riti>h  encroach- 
ment. The  colony  was  far  enough  from  democracy  ;  the  large 
ela-s  of  poor  landless  whites  had  scarcely  more  interest  in 
polities  than  the  slaves;  but  the  House  of  Burgesses  under- 
stood well  the  championship  of  American  privileges,  and  was 
prepared  to  second,  even  once  or  twice  to  anticipate,  Ma—  i- 
chusetts  in  measures  of  opposition.  Influenced  in  the  early 
dayby  Patrick  Henry.  Uichard  Henry  Lee,  and  Dabney  ( 'arr, 
it  was  sometimes  in  advance  of  the  northern  province,  and  a 


231]       Samuel  Adams,  the  Man  of  the  Town-Meeting.          29 

little  later,  when  Washington,  Jefferson,  and  Madison  came 
forward,  it  stood  certainly  foremost.  In  South  Carolina,  too, 
was  a  party  headed  by  Christopher  Gadsden,  prepared  to  take 
the  most  advanced  ground. 

In  the  preliminary  years,  however,  Massachusetts  was  very 
plainly  before  all  others,  according  to  the  view  both  of 
America  and  England.  If  sometimes  another  province  was 
in  advance  in  taking  a  bold  step,  it  was  perhaps  due  to  the 
management  of  the  skilful  Massachusetts  statesmen,  who,  for 
reasons  of  policy,  held  in  check  their  own  Assembly,  that 
local  pride  elsewhere  might  be  conciliated,  and  America, 
generally,  be  brought  to  present  an  unbroken  front. 


"SAM  ADAM-." 

It  is  time  now  to  take  a  look  at  the  Massachusetts  leaders, 
Boston  men  with  two  or  three  exceptions.  On  the  govern- 
ment side,  the  foremost  champions  in  these  preliminary  years 
were  the  two  royal  governors,  Francis  Bernard,  and  his  suc- 
cessor Thomas  Hutchinson.  These  men  have  had  hard 
measure  in  history.  In  the  heat  of  the  battle  the  patriots 
could  see  nothing  good  in  them  ;  the  cause  they  fought  for 
was  lost;  their  enemies  having  triumphed,  handed  their 
names  down  to  obloquy,  and  few  have  cared  to  attempt  any 
vindication.  Avoiding  all  eulogy,  it  is  only  just  to  say  as  to 
Bernard,  that  he  was  a  man  respectable  in  ability  and  character, 
who,  with  fair  motives  enough,  upheld  the  royal  side  honestly 
and  energetically  against  the  great  majority  of  the  Province. 
1  Ie  was  an  English  gentleman,  with  an  Oxford  education.  His 
tastes  and  accomplishments  were  scholarly ;  his  political  ideas 
were  those  universally  held  by  the  class  to  which  he  belonged. 
Lord  Camden  said  of  Bernard  in  a  discussion  with  Lord 
Mansfield :  "  This  great,  good,  and  sensible  man,  of  all  the 
governors  on  the  continent,  had  pointed  out  the  inconven- 
ience of  the  Stamp  Act."  He  was  always  opposed  to  it  and 


30  Samuel  Adams,  the  Man  of  the  T  %/.       [ 

strongly  urged  its  repeal.1     Botta,  too,  paints  his  character  in 
glowing  term.-.1' 

Hutchinson,  also,  at  the  outset  of  the  diflieulties.  occupied 
liberal  ground.3  His  case  in  particular  at  this  late  day  may 
be  kindly  considered.  He  came  to  the  leadership  upon 
Bernard's  retirement  in  17«!f».  Puritan  in  faith  and  in  the 
decorum  of  his  life,  he  was  for  many  years  the  best  known 
and  most  honored  son  of  Massichus< its.  He  prepared  a  his- 
tory of  the  Province  which  has  still  the  highest  authority. 
Coming  voting  into  public  life,  he  won  at  once  extraordinary 
confidence.  He  wa-  early  in  the  Assembly  and  soon  its 
speaker.  He  went  <jiiickly  into  the  council  or  upper  house 
of  the  legislature,  became  agent  of  the  colony  in  Eng- 
land, judge  of  probate,  chit  f-ju-tice,  lieutenant-governor,  and 
/nor.  Much  of  the  time  lie  held  several  important 
offices  at  once.  In  private  lite  hi-  character  was  blameless; 
in  public  life,  his  course  found  thorough  approval  until  the 
date  of  the  Stamp  Aei.  It  was  easy  enough  in  those  days 
fora  man  to  take  the  government  rather  than  the  popular 
side.  The  length.;  to  which  the  patriot  leaders  presently  went 
seemed  to  Hutchinson  improper  and  disastrous,  and  a>  the 
controversy  grew  bitter,  he  was  forced  into  positions  which, 
probably,  he  would  not  have  taken  in  a  calmer  time.  Gener- 
ally, in  his  championship  of  the  Tory  cause,  he  showed  a 
courage,  ability,  and  persistency  ijiiite  admirable.  He  hoped, 
no  doubt,  for  advancement  for  himself  and  his  sons,  stood  in 
some  awe,  natural  enough  in  a  colonist,  before  the  king  and 
English  nobles,  came  to  feel  personal  hatred  for  the  nun  who 
oppo>ed  him,  so  that  he  could  no  more  do  them  justice  than 
him.  Th c.-e  were  human  limitations;  his  battle  had 
much  inanfulness.  When  afterwards  he  went  to  England, 
and  after  a  few  homesick  years  died  at  last  a  forlorn  exile, 


1 1  lake's  Boston,  p.  75 

2  Kntta.  Hist,  of  War  of  Independ.,  I,  112. 

3  Manuscript  letter,  Nov.  13,  1773,  Mass.  Archives. 


233]       Samuel  Adams,  the  Man  of  the  Town-Meeting.          31 

mortified  and  disappointed,  he  left  in  America  the  reputa- 
tion of  having  been  the  evil  genius  of  his  country.  A  can- 
did student,  brushing  aside  prejudices,  is  forced  to  regard 
llutehinson  as  one  of  the  most  unfortunate  characters  of  our 
history,  and  feel  that  there  is  much  pathos  in  his  story.1 

We  must  now  bring  upon  our  stage  quite  a  different 
figure.  The  splendid  Otis,  whose  leadership  was  at  first 
unquestioned,  who  had  only  to  enter  Boston  town-meeting  to 
call  forth  shouts  and  dapping  <>t'  hands,  and  who  had  equal 
authority  in  the  Assembly,  as  early  as  1770,  was  fast  sinking 
into  insanity.  In  spite  of  fits  of  unreasonable  violence  and 
absurd  tolly,  vacillations  between  extremes  of  subserviency 
and  audacious  re>i  stance,  his  influence  with  the  people  long 
remained.  1  Ic  was  like  the  huge  cannon  on  the  man-of-war, 
in  Victor  Hugo's  story,  that  had  broken  from  its  moorings 
in  the  storm,  and  Ixroim*  a  terror  to  those  whom  it  formerly 
defended.  He  was  indeed  a  great  gun,  from  whom  in  the 
time  of  the  Stain})  Act  had  been  sent  the  most  powerful  bolts 
against  unconstitutional  oppression.  With  lashings  parted, 
however,  as  the  storm  grew  violent,  he  plunged  dangerously 
from  side  to  side,  almost  sinking  the  ship,  all  the  more  an 
object  of  dread  from  the  calibre  that  had  once  made  him  so 
serviceable.  It  was  a  melancholy  sight,  and  yet  a  great 
relief,  when  his  friends  saw  him  at  last  bound  hand  and  foot, 
and  carried  into  retirement. 

But  New  England  had  been  prolific  of  children  fitted  for 
the  time.  There  were  John  Scollay,  Benjamin  Kent,  Wil- 
liam Molineux,  William  Phillips,  John  Pitts,  Paul  Revere, 
— plain  citizens,  merchants,  mechanics,  selectmen  of  the  town, 


JAs  this  monograph  is  in  press,  appears  "The  Diary  and  Letters  of 
Thomas  llutchinson,"  a  selection  from  his  unpublished  manuscripts,  edited 
by  his  great-grandson.  The  book  is  full  of  interesting  materials,  and  will 
cause  a  new  estimate  to  be  put  upon  the  character  and  career  of  the  unfor- 
tunate governor.  We  are,  perhaps,  in  danger  of  running  to  the  other 
extreme.  See  "Governor  Thomas  Hutchinson,"  by  George  E.  Ellis,  in 
Atlantic,  for  May,  1884. 


:IL'  Samuel  Adams,  ike  Man  of  tfic  Tbwft-Hi  <///<</. 

deacons  in  the  churches,  cool  heads,  well-to-do,  persistent,  cour- 
ageous, sturdy  wheel-horses  for  the  occasion.  ( )f  a  higher  order 
were  tin-  wi.-e  and  faithful  James  Bowdoin,  the  able  Joseph 
llawley  of  Northampton,  young  men  like  John  Ham-nek, 
Josiah  Quincy.  .Joseph  Warren,  John  Adams,  men  of  wealth 
or  spirited  ability,  who  had,  like  Otis,  some  of  them,  a  gift 
of  eloquence  to  .-  -  on  fire,  some  of  them  executive 

r,  some  of  them  cunning  to  lay  trains  and  supply  the 
fla.-h  in  projwr  time.  It  was  a  wonderful  group.  But  Bow- 
doin  wa.-  -«'in«'time>  inert  ;  llawley  was  unreliable  through  a 
strange  moodlDQBBj  Hancock  liamperc<l  by  foible-  that  some- 
times quite  cancelled  his  merit.-  ;  Quincy,  who  died  when 
s«mvly  pa.-t  hi-  youth,  like  a  youth  was  sometimes  fickle, 
ready  to  temporize  when  to  falter  was  destruction  ;  again  in 
unwise  fervor  counselling  assassination  as  a  proper  expedient. 
AVarren,  too,  could  rush  into  extremes  of  ferocity,  wishing  he 
might  wade  to  the  knees  in  blood;  while  John  Adams  sh 
only  an  intermittent  /eal  in  the  public  cause  until  all  the 
preliminary  work  was  done. 

There  wa-  need  of  a  man  in  this  group,  of  sufficient 
ascendency  through  intellect  and  character  to  win  deference 
from  all — wise  enough  to  see  always  the  supreme  end,  what 
each  instrument  was  fit  for,  and  to  bring  all  forces  to  bear  in 
the  right  way — a  man  of  consummate  taei,  to  sail  in  torpedo- 
sown  waters  without  an  explosion,  though  conducting  wires 
of  local  prejudice,  class->cnsitivcncss,  and  personal  foible  on 
everv  hand,  led  -traight  down  to  magazines  of  wrath  which 
might  .-hatter  the  cause  in  a  moment, — a  man  of  resources  of 
hi-  own  to  such  an  extent  that  he  could  supplement  from  him- 
self what  was  wanting  in  others,  always  awake  though  others 
might  want  to  sleep, — always  at  work  though  others  might  be 
tired, — a  man  devoted,  without  thought  of  personal  gain  or 
fame,  simply  and  solely  to  the  public  cause.  Such  a  man 
there  was,  and  his  name  was  Samuel  Adams.  His  early 
career  had  not  been  promising.  In  private  affairs  he  had 
quite  failed  of  success,  winning  nothing  for  himself,  and  los- 


235]       Samuel  Adams,  the  Man  of  the  Town-Meeting.         :33 

ing  the  patrimony  that  had  descended  to  him.  In  public 
affairs  he  had  been  for  nine  years  a  tax-collector,  had  failed 
to  obtain  the  money,  was  largely  in  arrears,  and  had  been  in 
danger  of  prosecution.  The  town,  however,  knew  that  "  Sam 
Adams'"  deficiency  was  owing  to  hard  times  largely,  which 
made  the  people  slow  of  payment;  if  he  had  failed  to  press  us 
as  he  might  have  done  it  was  partly  due  to  his  humanity, 
partly  to  his  absorption  in  other  directions.  He  was  a  ruling 
spirit  in  the  clubs  and  in  town-meeting,  a  constant  writer  of 
political  articles  for  the  newspapers,  a  deep  student  of  all 
books  relating  to  the  science  of  government.  It  was  early 
known  that  when  public  documents  requiring  special  care 
were  needed  in  town  or  Assembly,  "Sam  Adams"  had  a  fund 
of  facts  and  ideas,  and  a  knack  of  putting  things,  that  made 
his  help  valuable.  His  poverty  and  reputation  for  business 
incapacity  kept  him  back  so  that  while  much  younger  men 
became  distinguished,  it  was  not  until  he  was  forty-two  that 
he  came  forward  prominently.  Then,  in  the  year  1764,  he 
was  appointed  by  Boston  town-meeting  to  prepare  instructions 
for  their  newly-elected  representatives.  The  year  following 
Samuel  Adams  began,  as  a  member  of  the  Assembly,  a  career 
of  public  service  almost  uninterrupted,  until  in  late  old  age 
his  i'aenlties  became  broken. 

In  character  and  career  he  was  a  singular  combination  of 
things  incongruous.  He  was  in  religion  the  narrowest  of 
Puritans,  but  in  manner  very  genial.  He  was  perfectly 
rigid  in  his  opinions,  but  in  his  expression  of  them  often 
very  compliant.  He  was  the  most  conservative  of  men, 
but  was  regarded  as  were  the  "abolition  fanatics,"  in  our 
time,  before  the  emancipation  proclamation.  His  upright- 
ness was  inflexible,  yet  a  wilier  fox  than  he  in  all  matters 
of  political  manceuvering,  our  history  does  not  show.  He 
had  in  business  no  push  or  foresight,  but  in  politics  was  a 
wonder  of  force  and  shrewdness.  He  expressed  opinions, 
whose  audacity  would  have  brought  him  at  once  to  the  halter 
if  he  could  have  been  seized,  in  a  voice  full  of  trembling. 
3 


34  Samuel  Adams,  the  Man  of  tfie  T<»-  *-M  >tincj.       [23G 

Even  in  his  younir  manhood,  his  hair  had  become  grey  and 
his  hand  shook  as  it'  with  paralysis  ;  but  he  lived  to  his  civility- 
second  year,  his  work  rarely  interrupted  by  .-ickncss,  serving 
as  governor  of  Massachusetts  for  several  successive  terms  after 
he  had  passed  his  three  scon-  and  ten,  almost  the  la>t  survivor 
among  the  great  pre-revolutionary  figures. 

llaiHToft  has  >p<»ken  of  Samuel  Adams  as  more  than  any 
other  man,  "tin-  type  and  representative  of  tin-  New  Knirland 
town-meeting."1  Boston,  as  We  have  seen,  is  the  1;, 
OOmmnnhj  that  ever  maintained  the  town  organization, 
probably  the  most  generally  able  and  intelligent.  No  other 
town  ever  played  so  conspicuous  a  part  in  connection  with 
important  events.  It  led  Massachusetts  New  Knirland,  the 
thirteen  colonies,  in  tin-  M  niggle  lor  independence.  Probably 
in  the  whole  history  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  race,  there  has  been 
no  other  so  interesting  manifestation  of  the  activity  of  the 
Folk-mote.  Of  tin-  town  of  towns,  Samuel  Adams  was  the 
son  of  sons.  He  was  Mrangely  identified  with  it  always. 
He  was  trained  in  -diools  and  Harvard  College.  He 

never  left  the  town  except  on  the  town'.-  errands  or  those 
of  the  province  of  which  it  was  the  head.  He  had  no  private 
business  after  the  first  years  of  his  manhood,  was  the  public 
servant  simplv  and  solely  in  places  large  and  small, — fire- 
ward,  committee  to  see  that  chimney-  \\  •  ,  tax-collector, 
moderator  of  town-meeting,  representative,  congressman,  gover- 
nor. One  may  almost  call  him  the  creature  of  the  town- 
meeting.  His  development  took  place  on  the  floor  of  Kaneuil 
JIall  and  the  Old  South,  from  the  time  when  he  looked  on  as 
a  wondering  boy  to  the  time  when  he  stood  then-  as  the 
master  figure;  and  such  a  master  of  the  methods  by  which  a 
town-meeting  may  be  swavcd,  the  world  has  never  seen.  On 
the  best  of  terms  with  the  people, — the  workmen  of  the  ship- 
yards, the  distillers  (he  had  himself  tried  to  be  a  brewer),  the 
merchants — he  knew  always  precisely  what  springs  to  touch. 

lln  a  private  conversation  with  the  writer;  also  Hist,  of  Const.,  II.,  260. 


237]       Samuel  Adams,  the  Man  of  the  Tvum-Meeting.          35 

He  was  the  prince  of  canvassers,  the  very  king  of  the  caucus, 
of  which  his  father  was  the  inventor.  He  was  not  a  great 
orator.  Always  clear-headed  in  the  most  confusing  turmoil, 
he  had  ever  at  command  a  simple,  convincing  style  of  speech 
effective  with  plain  men;  and  when  a  fire  burned  for  which 
he  could  not  trust  himself,  he  could  rely  on  the  magnificent 
speech  of  Otis,  or  Quincy,  or  Warren,  who  poured  their  copious 
words,  often  quite  unconscious  that  cunning  "Sam  Adams'' 
really  managed  his  men  and  was  directing  the  stream.  His 
ascendency  was  quite  extraordinary  and  no  less  marked  over 
men  of  ability  than  over  ordinary  minds.  "Master  of  the 
Puppets,"  is  one  of  the  many  expressions  applied  to  him  by 
Hutchinson  to  denote  the  completeness  of  his  leadership.1  As 
often  Samuel  Adams'  followers  did  not  know  that  they  were 
being  led,  so,  possibly,  he  failed  himself  to  see,  sometimes, 
that  he  way  leading,  believing  himself  to  be  the  mere  agent 
of  the  will  of  the  great  people  which  decided  this  way  or  that. 
At  any  rate,  for  the  democracy  of  the  town-meeting  he  never 
had  any  feeling  but  reverence.  So  far  as  his  New  Englanders 
were  concerned  "  Vox  populi "  was  always  with  him  "  Vox 
Dei."  His  first  conspicuous  act  was  to  serve  as  a  channel  to 
that  voice  in  1764,  instructing  in  behalf  of  the  town  the 
representatives ;  to  that  voice  he  was  always  ready  himself  to 
defer.  In  his  old  age,  when  he  was  hesitating  whether  or  no 
to  approve  the  Federal  Constitution  which  he  thought  might 
remove,  to  a  dangerous  degree,  the  power  from  the  people  to 
a  central  authority,  shrewd  men  knew  how  to  manage  the 
manager.  A  meeting  of  Boston  mechanics  was  contrived, 
which  endorsed  the  constitution;  the  result  was  made  known 
to  Samuel  Adams  by  a  committee  of  plain  men  with  Paul 
Revere  at  their  head,  after  which  he  hesitated  no  longer. 
While  many  of  the  best  men  of  New  England,  after  the 
peace,  became  Federalists,  favoring  sometimes  the  establish- 
ment of  a  monarchy  and  an  order  of  nobility,  Samuel  Adams 

1  From  manuscript  letter,  July  10,  '73,  in  Mass.  Archives. 


36  Samud  Adams,  tiie  Han  of  the  Twcn-Mcctiny.       [238 

stood  sturdily  for  a  democracy,  perhaps  too  decent  nil  i/ed.  lie 
carried  to  an  extreme  his  di-like  of  delegated  power.  When, 
in  1784,  Boston,  grown  unwieldy,  agitated  the  question  of 
establishing  a  city-government,  the  people,  in.-tcad  of  trans- 
act in.ir  their  own  atl'airs,  committing  them  to  the  management 
of  a  mayor  and  representative  councilmen,  Samuel  Adams, 
chairman  of  tin-  town's  committee  to  report  on  the  defects  of 
the  town  organ!/; i  . -rted  that  "  ti  no  del'. 

and  in  his  time  there  was  no  change. 

We  are  accustomed  to  call  Wa.-hington  the  "Father  of  hi- 
Country."  It  would  l»e  useless  to  dispute  his  right  to  the 
title;  he  and  no  other  will  l>ear  it  through  all  the  ago.  He 
established  our  coin  MI  with  the  .-word,  then 

guided  its  course  during  the  tir-t  critical  yean  ot'  its  inde- 
pendent e  .  No  one  (-an  know  the  figure  without  feel- 
ing how  real  is  its  greatness.  It  i-  impo^iMe  to  see  how 
without  Wa.-hington  the  nation  could  have  ever  I..-,  n.  lint 
after  all.  i-  "  Father  of  America"  the  hot  title  for  Wa- 
ton?  Where  and  what  wa<  Wa-hin-jfton  during  those  long 
preliminary  years  when  the  nation  wa.-  shaping  a>  the  ! 
do  grc»w  in  the  womb  of  her  that  is  with  child?  A  quiet 
planter,  who  in  youth  as  a  surveyor  had  come  to  know  the 
woods,  who  in  hi.-  voting  manhood  had  led  bodies  of  pro- 
vincial- with  some  efficiency  in  certain  unsuccessful  military 
expeditions,  who  in  maturity  had  sat,  for  the  most  part  in 
silence,  among  \\\<  active  colleagues  in  the  House  of  Bur- 
gesses, with  I  |  -u^gotion  to  make  in  all  the  >harp 
debate  while  the  new  nation  was  shaping.  There  is  another 
character  in  our  history  to  whom  was  once  given  the  title 
"Father  of  America'' — a  man  to  a  large  e\t.-nt  forgotten, 
his  reputation  overlaid  by  those  who  followed  him, — no 
other  than  this  man  of  the  Town-meeting,  Samuel  Adams. 
As  far  as  the  genesis  of  America  is  concerned,  Samuel  Adams 
can  more  properly  be  called  the  "Father  of  our  Country" 

1  Boston  Town  Records,  Nov.  9, 1785. 


239]       Samuel  Adams,  the  Man  of  the  Toum-Meeting.          37 

than  Washington.     He  is,  at  any  rate,  second  only  to  Wash- 
ington in  the  story  of  the  Revolution.1 

Those  instructions  to  the  Boston  representatives  in  1764, 
in  which  Samuel  Adams  spoke  for  the  town,  emerging  then, 
at  the  age  of  forty-two,  into  the  public  life  where  he  remained 
to  the.  end.  contain  the  first  suggestion  ever  made  in  America 
for  a  unrting  <»f  the  colonies,  looking  toward  a  resistance  to 
l>riti>h  encroachments.  Fnun  that  paper  came  the  " Stamp 
Act  Congress."  In  the  years  which  immediately  followed, 
being  at  length  in  tin-  A >.-» -in My,  he  soon  rose  to  the  leading 
]x»ition,  superseding  .James  Otis,  who  gradually  sank  under 
mental  disease.  Whil<-  the  cotemporaries  of  Samuel  Adams 
rejoiced  over  the  repeal  of  the  Stamp  Act,  lie  saw  in  the  dec- 
laration of  Parliament  by  which  it  was  accompanied,  that  it 
was  competent  to  legislate  for  the  colonies  in  all  cases  what- 
soever, plain  evidence  that  more  trouble  was  in  store,  and 
was  the  most  influential  among  the  few  who  strove  to  pre- 
vent a  disastrous  supineness  among  the  people.  From  this 
time  forward  the  substantial  authorship  of  almost  every  state 
paper  of  importance  in  Massachusetts  can  be  traced  to  him. 
Very  noticeably,  he  was  the  author  of  the  "  Circular  Letter  " 
in  1768,2  by  which  the  colonies  in  general  were  roused,  and 
the  way  for  union  prepared.  From  that  year  on,  he  saw  no 
satisfactory  issue  from  the  dispute  but  in  the  independence  of 
America,  and  began  to  labor  for  it  with  all  his  energy.  It 
had  been  a  dream  with  many,  indeed,  that  some  time  there 
was  to  be  a  great  independent  empire  in  this  western  world; 
but  no  public  man  saw  so  soon  as  Samuel  Adams,  that  in  the 
latter  half  of  the  eighteenth  century  the  time  for  it  had  come, 


1  "A  man  whom  Plutarch,  if  he  had  only  lived  late  enough,  would  have 
delighted  to  include  in  his  gallery  of  worthies,  a  man  who  in  the  history 
of  the  American  Revolution  is  second  only  to  Washington,  Samuel  Adams." 
— John  Fiske:   (taken  from  his  forthcoming  "History  of  the  American 
People"  by  kind  permission  of  the  author). 

2  Satisfactorily  established  in  Wells'  Life  of  S.  Adams,  I.,  172. 


38  Samuel  Adams,  ike  Man  of  the  Town-Meeting.       [240 

and  that  to  work  for  it  was  the  duty  of  all  patriots.1  One 
might  puss  in  review  the  great  figures  of  our  revolutionary 
epoch,  one  by  one,  and  show  that  then,  seven  years  before 
the  declaration  of  ind< -JM -ndenee,  there  was  not  a  man  except 
Samuel  Adams,  who  looked  forward  to  it  and  worked  for  it. 
The  world  generally  had  not  conceived  of  the  attainment  of 
independence  as  a  present  possibilitv.  Tli<»<  who  came  to 
think  it  possible,  like  Franklin,  Dickinson  of  Pennsylvania, 
and  James  Otis  shrunk  from  the  idea  as  involving  calamity, 
and  only  tried  to  secure  a  better  regulated  dependence.  As 
late  as  1775,  the  idea  of  separation,  according  to  Jeiferson, 
had  "never  yet  entered  into  any  person's  mind."2  It  was 
well-known,  however,  in  Massachusetts  what  were  the  opin- 
ions of  Samuel  Adams.  He  was  isolated  even  in  the  group 
that  most  closely  surrounded  him.  Even  so  tni>ty  a  fol- 
lower and  attached  a  friend  as  Joseph  Warren  could  not 
stand  with  him  here.  What  ( iarrisou  was  to  the  abolition 
of  slavery,  was  Samuel  Adams  to  independence, — a  man 
looked  on  with  the  greatest  dread  as  an  extremist  and  fanatic 
by  many  of  those  who  afterwards  fought  for  freedom,  down 
almost  to  that  very  day,  July  4th,  1776,  when  largely 
through  his  skilful  and  tireless  management,  as  he  worked 


1st,  177-1.  I Intchinson,  having  just  reached  London,  was  hurried 
by  Lord  Dartmouth  into  the  presence  of  the  king  without  being  allowed 
time  to  change  his  clothes  after  the  voyage.  A  conversation  of  two  hours 
took  place,  the  king  showing  the  utmost  eagerness  to  find  out  the  truth  as 
to  America.  While  answering  the  king's  inquiries  concerning  the  popular 
leaders,  Hutchinson  remarked  that  Samuel  Adams  was  regarded  "  as  the 
opposer  of  Government  and  a  sort  of  Wilkes  in  New  England. 
/ :  What  gives  him  his  importance  ? 

"Hutchinson:  A  great  pretended  zeal  for  liberty  and  a  most  inflexible 
natural  temper.  He  was  the  first  that  pnhlidy  assorted  the  independency 
of  the  colonies  upon  the  kingdom."  Diary  and  Letters  of  Thos.  Hutch - 
in-<>n,  p.  167. 

The  testimony  of  Hutehinson  is  often  referred  to,  because,  as  a  man  of 
judgment,  himself  in  the  thick  of  the  liirht,  and  in  relations  of  hitter  hos- 
tility to  Samuel  Adams,  his  evidence  as  to  Samuel  Adams'  important  has 
a  special  value. 

1  Cooke's  Virginia :  p.  37o. 


241]       Samuel  Adams,  the  Man  of  the  Town-Meeting.          39 

the  wires  in  his  subtle  way,  the  Congress  which  he  had  had 
so  large  an  influence  in  bringing  into  being,  came  at  last  to 
stand  upon  his  ground. 

In  public  documents  which  he  drafted,  indeed,  he  dis- 
tinctly and  repeatedly  disclaimed  all  thought  of  a  severance, 
and  was  loudly  charged  by  Hutchinson  and  others  with 
shameful  duplicity,  since  his  private  utterances  were  often  of 
a  ditl'erent  tenor.  If  he  had  cared  to  defend  his  consistency, 
he  would  have  declared,  no  doubt,  that  when  he  was  acting 
simply  as  the  mouth-piece  of  a  body,  few  or  none  of  whom 
had  reach. -.1  hi.-  position,  he  must  use  other  language  than 
when  speaking  for  himself.  Such  a  defence  is  not  alto- 
gether satisfactory.  It  is  a  still  harder  task  to  justify  the 
conduct  of  the  group  of  which  he  was  the  controlling 
mind,  in  the  matter  of  the  famous  letters  which  were 
sent  from  England  to  America,  by  Franklin,  then  the  Mas- 
sachusetts agent,  in  1773.  The  letters  were  private,  written 
by  men  in  high  position  in  the  Province  to  English  friends, 
and  were  obtained  by  Franklin  in  a  way  only  recently 
explained.1  They  were  sent  to  America  on  the  express  con- 
dition that  no  copies  were  to  be  made;  this,  however,  was 
evaded  by  the  leaders,  who  finally  published  them  broad- 
cast, but  not  until  the  public  mind  had  been  prepared  in  a 
way  which  was  certainly  marvellously  artful.  The  letters  of 
Hutchinson  in  the  collection  are  mild  enough  in  their  temper, 
and  certainly  not  out  of  harmony  with  his  well-known  views. 
They  were  made,  however,  to  produce  against  him  the 
strongest  possible  resentment.  Aggravated  horror  over  their 
contents  was  expressed  before  their  publication,  to  affect  the 
public  view.  Some  sentences  were  falsely  construed,  others 
garbled  and  disjointed.  Hutchinson  declares  his  letters  are 
the  most  innocent  things  in  the  world,  "  but  if  it  had  been 
'Chevy  Chace/  the  leaders  are  so  adroit  they  would  have 
made  the  people  believe  it  was  full  of  evil  and  treason."2 


1  See  Proc.  Mass.  Hist.  Soc.,  Feb.  and  March,  1878. 

2  Manuscript  letter  in  Mass.  Archives,  July  10,  1773. 


40  Samuel  Adams,  the  Man  of  the  Town-Meeting.       ['2  \'2 

Samuel  Adams' complicity  in  the  affair  is  quite  certain,  and  it 
is  hard  to  reconcile  the  tiling  with  any  principle  of  fair  deal- 
ing. The  whole  transaction  has  a  questionable  color,  and 
though  patriotic  historians  and  biographers  have  Ixvn  aide  to 
see  nothing  in  it,  except,  so  to  speak,  a  dove-like  iridescence, 
an  unprejudiced  jmL'c  will  d«-tr.-t  the  scaly  gleam  of  a  crea- 
ture in  letter  repute  for  wisdom  than  for  harmlessness.  The 
fact  was,  Hutchinson  and  Samuel  Adam>  were  such  thor- 
oughly good  haters  of  one  another  that  Dr.  Johnson  mid  it 
have  folded  them  both  to  his  burly  breast  in  an  ecstasy.  IJy 
some  casuistry  or  other,  the  Puritan  politician,  upright  though 
as,  made  crooked  treatment  of  his  Tory  l>,'t<  noir  square 
with  his  sense  of  riuht.  He  would  fight  the  devil  with  tire, 
rather  than  run  any  risks. 

"  His  chief  dependence,''  wrote  II  utchinson,  "is  upon  Boston 
town-meeting,  \\here  he  originates  the  measures  which  are. 
followed  by  the  rest  of  the  towns,  and,  of  course,  are  adopted 
or  justified  by  the  Assembly."  h  will  be  interesting  to  look 
at  two  or  three  of  these  town-meeting,  illuMratiiig,  as  they 
do  so  clearly,  the  methods  and  character  of'  the  man.  Th 
days  of  March,  177<»,  are  very  memorable  in  -the  hi>tory  of 
the  Town-meeting.  The  snow  in  KiiiLT  >treet  lay  stained 
with  the  blood  of  Boston  people,  shed  by  soldiers  of  the  29th 
regiment.  "The  troops  must  go!"  said  the  town.  "They 
shall  stay!"  said  King  George,  through  his  deputies,  and  the 
question  was,  which  side  should  yield.  Hutchinson,  chief- 
magistrat'-.  had  >h«»wn  the  best  nerve  and  judgment  at  the 
time  of  th«  •  Ma— acre.'  by  calm  words  from  the  east  balcony 
of  the  Old  State  House,  averting  a  bloody  battle,  even  when 
the  alarm-bells  were  summoning  the  frantic  citixens,  and  on 
the  other  side,  the  soldiers  were  kneeling  in  their  ranks  ready 
for  street  firing.  Out  of  the  tumult  the  usual  quiet  and 
decorum  were  appearing.  The  selectmen  had  drawn  up  the 
warrant,  which  the  constables  of  the  different  wards  had 
•  1  in  due  form.  The  Folk-mote,  swell  ing  beyond  the 
dimensions  of  Faneuil  Hall,  had  flowed  over  to  the  Old 


243]       Samuel  Adams,  the  Man  of  the  Town-Meeting.          41 

South,  the  path  of  the  crowd  thitherward  crossing  the  blood- 
stains where  the  victims  had  weltered;  now,  in  the  meeting- 
house and  tin-  street  outside,  they  waited  sullenly  but  in  order. 

In  the  council -chaml>er  in  the  Old  State  House,  Hutchinson, 
surrounded  by  his  twenty-eight  councillors  and  the  com- 
manders of  the  troops  and  the  fleet,  the  former  in  wigs  and 
scarlet  robes  of  office,  the  latter  in  uniform,  looked  out  on  the 
crowd  as  they  passed  by  to  the  Old  South,  and  recalled  the 
way  in  which,  in  the  preceding  century,  the  town  had  handled 
Sir  Edmund  Andros.  The  imposing  portraits  of  Charles  II. 
and  James  II.  from  the  wall  seemed  to  shed  an  influence  upon 
the  company  to  make  them  strong  in  maintaining  the  royal 
prerogative. 

On  the  people's  side,  the  central  figure,  as  always  in  those 
days,  is  Samuel  Adams.  Not  at  all  that  he  is  the  most  con- 
spicuous; he  is  neither  selectman  nor  moderator;  he  is  not 
chairman  of  the  committee  which  the  town  appoints  to  bear 
its  message  to  the  lieutenant-governor.  As  is  generally  the 
case,  others  are  in  the  foreground,  while  matters  rest  upon 
him.  All  is  in  order  according  to  the  time-consecrated  Anglo- 
Saxon  traditions.  Samuel  Adams  has  addressed  the  people 
in  his  direct,  earnest  way,  and  now,  as  a  simple  member  of 
the  committee,  behind  Hancock,  the  elegant  chairman,  he  goes 
with  the  rest  to  demand  of  Hutchinson  the  removal  of  the 
troops.  The  crisis  has  come :  now,  in  the  moment  of  collision, 
the  gilded  figure-head  is  taken  in  out  of  danger,  and  "a 
wedge  of  steel"  *  is  thrust  out  to  bear  the  brunt  of  the  impact. 
As  spokesman  of  the  town,  Samuel  Adams  demands  the 
removal  of  the  troops.  Hutchinson  is  not  a  coward.  Though 
it  is  declared  that  authority  to  remove  the  troops  rests  only  with 


1  Excellent  John  Adams  found  the  legitimate  resources  of  rhetoric  quite 
inadequate  for  the  expression  of  his  admiration  for  his  kinsman.  "He  was," 
he  says,  "  the  wedge  of  steel  which  split  the  knot  of  lignum  vitae  that  tied 
America  to  England." 


42          Samuel  Adams,  thr  J/rm  of  the  Town-Meeting.      ['2  \  \ 

Gage  at  New  York,  the  ranking  officer,  Dalrymple,  agrees  that 
the  29th  regiment  shall  go  down  the  harbor  to  the  Castle ; 
the  14th,  however,  must  remain.  The  committee  is  given  to 
understand  that  this  :m>\v«-r  must  end  the  matter,  and  with  it 
they  return  to  the  town-meeting.  They  go  forth  from  the 
south  door  of  the  Old  State  House,  Samuel  Adams  the  soul 
of  the  group.  Though  the  March  air  is  kern,  lie  hares  his 
head;  he  is  luit  is,  hut  his  hair  is  already  grey,  and  a  tremor 
of  the  head  and  hands  helps  to  give  his  figure  as  he  walks  a 
certain  venerable-ness.  "Both  regiments  or  none!"  "Both 
regiments  or  none!"  he  is  heard  to  say  to  the  men  on  this 
side  and  that,  as  the  crowd  in  the  street  press  back  to  make  a 
lane  by  which  the  committee  can  pass.  When  presently, 
before  the  moderator,  the  reply  of  Hutchinson  is  reported,  the 
significance  of  the  words  sjH.km  to  the  crowd  appears.  "Both 
regiments  or  none!"  from  the  right;  "Both  regiments  or 
none!"  from  the  left.  The  town  has  caught  from  the  "Chief 
Incendiary"  the  watch-word;  it  is  uttered  by  every  voice. 
It  is  formally  voted  that  both  regiments  must  go,  and 
Samuel  Adams,  with  his  supporting  group,  is  pi-ex  ntly  once 
more  in  the  council-chamber  to  speak  the  peremptory  mes- 
sage. There  is  hurried  consultation,  attempt  at  eva-ion,  a 
plea  of  powerlessness  to  execute  the  popular  requirement. 
But  forussrd  in  the  dark  blue  eye  of  Samuel  Adams  is  the. 
determination  of  all  the  freemen  of  the  Province.  The 
n  -poiifihility  is  forced  upon  the  magistrate  which  he  seeks  to 
avoid.  The  promise  is  wrung  from  the  unwilling  lips  that 
both  regiments  shall  forthwith  go,  to  be  known  in  history 
henceforth  as  the  "Sam  Adams  regiments;"  and  so,  under 
the  master's  guidance,  the  whole  power  of  the  king,  as  was 
said  at  the  time  in  Kngland,  was  successfully  bullied.  It  is 
rarely  enough  that  one  can  find  any  trace  of  boastfulness  in 
the  words  of  Samuel  Adams,  but  writing  of  the  encounter 
with  Ilutchinson  to  Warren,  in  the  following  year,  there  is  a 
touch  of  exultation  in  the  words :  "  If  fancy  deceived  me  not, 


245]       Samuel  Adams,  the  Man  of  the  Town-Meeting.          43 

I  observed  his  knees  to  tremble.     I  thought  I  saw  his  face 
grow  pale,  and  I  enjoyed  the  sight." l 

Less  dramatic,  but  far  more  memorable  than  his  manage- 
ment of  the  expulsion  of  the  regiments,  was  the  banding 
together  of  the  Massachusetts  towns  through  Samuel  Adams, 
by  means  of  the  "Committees  of  Correspondence."  This 
was  his  almost  unaided  work,2  and  no  act  of  his  career  shows 
to  better  ad  Mintage  his  far-seeing  statesmanship.  The  most 
dear-flighted  of  the  Tories  failed  entirely  to  detect  the  por- 
tent of  the  scheme  until  it  was  accomplished ;  while  of  the 
patriots,  scarcely  one  of  prominence  stood  by  Samuel  Adams, 
in  bringing  the  measure  to  pass,  or  took  part  cordially,  until 
a  late  period,  in  carrying  out  the  plan.  Three  weeks  passed 
before  he  could  procure  a  town-meeting  for  the  initiation  of 
his  idea,  during  which  three  petitions  signed  by  freeholders 
were  presented.  On  November  2,  1772,  at  length  Samuel 
Adams  vanquished  the  sluggishness  of  his  friends.  The 
town-meeting  in  which  the  matter  came  to  vote  was  small ; 
the  measure  was  earnestly  debated,  not  coming  to  a  decision 
until  late  at  night.  Characteristically,  Samuel  Adams  took 
for  himself  a  second  place  on  the  Committee,  giving  the 
chairmanship  to  James  Otis,  who  now  in  a  short  interval  of 
sanity,  rendered  his  last  service  to  the  community  of  which 
he  had  been  the  idol.  Samuel  Adams  was  appointed  to  draft 
a  statement  of  the  rights  of  the  colonists  "  as  men,  as  chris- 
tians,  and  as  subjects ; "  Joseph  Warren,  who  was  fast  rising 
to  the  position  of  his  ablest  and  trustiest  lieutenant,  drew  up 
a  "  List  of  Grievances ; "  and  Dr.  Benjamin  Church,  a  man 
who  began  brilliantly  and  usefully,  but  made  a  traitor's  end, 
prepared  a  letter  to  the  towns.  Samuel  Adams'  statement  is 
substantially  an  anticipation  of  the  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence. 


1  Hutchinson  attributes  the  result  to  the  weakness  of  Col.  Dalrymple. 
"  He  brought  it  all  upon  himself  by  his  offer  to  remove  one  of  the  regi- 
ments." Diary  and  Letters,  p.  80. 

*  Settled  satisfactorily  in  Wells'  Life  of  S.  Adams,  I.,  509. 


44  Samuel  Adams,  the  Ifim  of  the  Town-Meeting.       [246 

In  the  last  days  of  1772,  the  document,  having  been 
printed,  was  transmitted  to  tln.se  for  whom  it  had  been 
intended,  producing  at  once  an  immense  effect.  The  towns 
almost  unanimously  appointed  >imilar  committees  ;  from  cv  TV 
(juarter  came  replies  in  which  the  sentiments  of  Samuel 
Adams  were  echoed.  In  the  library  of  Bancroft  is  a  volume 
of  manu.-eripts  worn  and  stained  by  time  which  have  an 
interest  scarcely  interior  to  that  possessed  by  the  "Declara- 
tion of  Independence-"  itself,  as  the  fading  patrc  lianas 
against  its  pillar  in  the  library  of  the  State  Department  at 
Washington*  They  are  the  original  replies  sent  by  the  Ma— 
saelniM'tts  towns  to  Samuel  Adams'  Committee  sitting  in 
Faneuil  Hall,  during  those  lirst  months  of  1773.  One  may 
well  read  them  with  bated  breath,  lor  it  is  the  touch  of  the 
elbow  as  the  stout  little  democracies  dress  up  into  line,  ju.-t 
before  they  plunge  in  at  Concord  and  Bunker-Hill.  There 
is  sometimes  a  noble  scorn  of  the  restraints  of  orthography, 
as  of  the  despotism  of  Great  Britain,  in  the  work  of  the  old 
town  clerks,  for  they  generally  were  secretaries  of  the  com- 
mittees; and  once  in  a  while  a  touch  of  Dogberry's  quaint- 
ness,  as  the  punctilious  officials,  though  not  always  "putting 
God  first,"  yet  take  pains  that  there  >hall  l>e  no  mistake 
their  pieiy,  by  making  every  letter  in  the  name  of  the  Deity 
a  rounded  capital;  yet  the  documents  ought  to  inspire  the 
deepest  reverence.  It  i-  the  highest  mark  the  town-meeting 
has  ever  touched.  Never  before  and  never  since  have  Anglo- 
Saxon  men,  in  lawful  Folk-mote  assembled,  <ri ven  utterance 
to  thoughts  and  feelings  so  line  in  1  liemselves  and  .-<»  preg- 
nant with  irreat  events.  To  each  letter  >tand  atlixed  the  names 
of  the  committee  in  autograph.  This  awkward  scrawl  was 
made  by  the  rough  fist  of  a  Cape  Ann  fisherman,  on  shore. 
for  the  day  to  do  at  town-meeting  the  duty  his  fellows  had 
laid  upon  him  ;  the  hand  that  wrote  this  was  cramped  from 
the  scythe-handle,  as  its  possessor  mowed  an  intervale  on  the 
Connecticut;  this  blotted  Hiruature  where  smutted  lingers 
have  left  a  black  stain  was  written  by  a  blaek>mith  of  Mid- 


247]       Samuel  Adams,  the  Man  of  the  Town-Meeting.          45 

dlesex,  turning  aside  a  moment  from  forging  a  barrel  that 
was  to  do  duty  at  Lexington.  They  were  men  of  the  plain- 
est ;  but  as  the  documents,  containing  statements  of  the  most 
generous  principles  and  the  most  courageous  determination, 
were  read  in  the  town-houses,  the  committees  who  produced 
them  and  the  constituents  for  whom  they  stood  were  lifted 
above  the  ordinary  level.  Their  horizon  expanded  to  the 
broadest;  they  had  in  view  not  simply  themselves,  but  the 
welfare  of  the  continent;  not  solely  their  own  generation  but 
remote  posterity.  It  was  Samuel  Adams'  own  plan,  the  con- 
sequences of  which  no  one  foresaw,  neither  friend  nor  foe,  but 
in  January  the  eyes  of  men  were  opening.  One  of  the  ablest 
of  the  Tories  wrote: l  "This  is  the  foulest,  subtlest,  and  most 
vrnoMHius  -ei-ji<  nt  i-viT  issued  from  the  egg  of  sedition.  I 
saw  the  small  so-d  when  it  was  implanted ;  it  was  a  grain  of 
mn-tard.  I  have  watched  the  plant  until  it  has  become  a 
ii-reai  tree."  It  was  the  transformation  into  a  strong  cord  of 
what  had  been  a  rope  of  sand. 

As  to  intercolonial  committees  of  correspondence,  the  ini- 
tiative in  their  formation  was  taken  soon  afterwards  by  Vir- 
ginia, Dabney  Carr  making  the  motion  to  that  effect  in  the 
House  of  Burgesses.  Whether  the  suggestion  of  the  measure 
came  from  the  Massachusetts  patriots  is  a  matter  which  has 
been  much  disputed.  It  was  so  believed  in  Boston.2  The 
measure  was  only  a  carrying  out  of  the  general  policy  first 
marked  out  by  Samuel  Adams  in  the  "Instructions"  of  1764, 
and  the  "  Circular  Letter  "  of  1768.  In  Bancroft's  collection 
is  contained  an  autograph  letter  of  Samuel  Adams  written  to 
the  Virginian,  Arthur  Lee,  then  in  London,  September  27, 
1771,  in  which  it  is  suggested  that  societies  of  correspondence 
shall  be  formed  in  different  colonies  with  even  a  larger  pur- 
pose than  that  of  banding  the  colonies  together.  The  sugges- 
tion is  that  they  shall  correspond  with  the  "  Society  for  the 


1  Daniel  Leonard. 

2  Hutchinson:  Manuscript  letter  in  Mass.  Archives,  Apr.  19,  1773. 


46  Samud  Adams,  the  Man  of  the  Town-Meeting.       [248 

Maintenance  of  the  Bill  of  Rights"  in  England,  and  so 
bring  America  into  union  -with  those  in  the  mother-country, 
who  were  resisting  the  encroachments  of  the  Prerogative. 
"This  is  a  sudden  thought,"  he  writes,  "and  drops  undi- 
gested from  my  pen.  It  would  be  an  arduous  task  for  any 
man  to  attempt  to  awaken  a  sufficient  number  in  the  colonies 
to  so  grand  an  undertaking.  Nothing,  however,  should  be 
despaired  of."1  Whether  the  Virginia  patriots  proceeded  on 
their  own  motion  or  incited  from  elsewhere  it  is  certain  that 
Samuel  Adams  had  regarded  the  banding  together  of  the 
Massachusetts  town-  only  as  preliminary  to  uniting  by  simi- 
lar means  the  thirteen  colonies.  The  train  was  laid  for  it  all, 
though  the  execution  of  the  purpose  was  delayed  in  the  Ma-- 
sat-husetts  Assembly  by  certain  important  events.  It  was 
greatly  to  the  joy  of  Massachusetts  that  Virginia  antieip 
her.  South  and  North  must  present  an  unbroken  front. 
Virginia  went  forward  and  Massachusetts  was  at  once  at 
her  side.  » 

As  th<  struggle  deepens  the  prominence  of  Samuel  Adams 
becomes  more  marked.  In  the  Assembly,  he  carries  the 
American  cause  upon  his  shoulders,  often  almost  alone;  but 
the  town-meeting  i-  his  favorite  sphere.  There  he  is  hardly 
less  than  supreme,  and  his  most  effective  work  finds  its  basis 
there.  When  HutchiiiHui  culls  him  kk  Master  of  the  Puppets," 
one  feels  that  the  language  is  extravagant.  Other  expressions, 
however,  with  which  the  letters  of  Hutchinson  abound,  the 
"All  in  All,"th«-"Instar  Omnium,"  the  "Chief  Incendiary," 
are  scarcely  less  strong,  and  the  expressions  of  those  who 
loved  him  are  as  marked  as  those  of  the  men  who  regarded 
him  with  hatred  ami  terror.  Generally  it  is  as  the  manager 
somewhat  withdrawn  behind  the  figures  that  stand  in  the  fore- 
ground that  he  is  making  himself  felt.  On  that  December 
night  in  177:5,  when  the  town-meeting  in  the  Old  South,  by 
the  dim  light  of  candles,  wait  for  the  return  of  Benjamin 

1  Copied  from  the  manuscript. 


249]       Samuel  Adams,  the  Man  of  the  Town-Meeting.          47 

Rotch,  owner  of  the  tea-ship  "  Dartmouth/7  from  Milton,  and 
even  Josiah  Quincy  advises  a  temporizing  course  rather  than 
decided  action,  Samuel  Adams  sits  in  the  pulpit  as  Moderator. 
When  presently  the  merchant  enters  and  announces  the  gov- 
ernor's refusal  to  grant  a  pass  to  the  ship,  the  words  of  the 
Moderator  are:  "This  meeting  can  do  nothing  more  to  save 
the  country !  "  A  war-whoop  is  heard  from  near  the  door ; 
the  Mohawk.-  n i-l i,  with  the  crowd  at  their  heels,  to  Griffin's 
wharf,  and  presently  through  the  stillness  is  heard  the  crash 
of  the  hatchets  as  the  chests  are  broken  in  upon  the  decks  of 
the  vessel.  Samuel  Adams  is  not  in  the  company,  but  his 
sentence  from  the  chair  was  evidently  the  concerted  signal  for 
which  all  were  waiting.  Again,  at  the  last  great  town-meet- 
ing before  Lexington  and  Concord,  March  6th,  1775,  the  fifth 
celebration  of  the  Boston  Massacre,  while  Warren  is  the 
heroic  central  figure,  Samuel  Adams  is  behind  all  as  chief 
(1  i  rector.  On  that  day  Gage  had  in  the  town  eleven  regiments. 
( )f  trained  soldiers  there  were  scarcely  fewer  than  the  number 
of  men  on  the  patriot  side;  and  when  we  remember  that 
many  Tories  throughout  the  Province,  in  the  disturbed  times, 
had  sought  refuge  in  Boston,  under  the  protection  of  the 
troops,  we  can  feel  what  a  host  there  was  that  day  on  the  side 
of  the  King.  Nevertheless,  all  went  forward  as  usual.  The 
warrant  appeared  in  due  form  for  the  meeting,  at  which  an 
oration  was  to  be  delivered  to  commemorate  the  "horrid  mas- 
sacre," and  to  denounce  the  "  ruinous  tendency  of  standing 
armies  being  placed  in  free  and  populous  cities  in  time  of 
peace."  The  Old  South  was  densely  thronged,  and  in  the  pulpit 
as  Moderator  once  more,  by  the  side  of  the  town-clerk,  William 
Cooper,  quietly  sat  Samuel  Adams.  Among  the  citizens  a 
large  party  of  officers  were  present,  intent,  apparently,  upon 
making  a  disturbance  with  the  design  of  precipitating  a  con- 
flict. The  war,  it  was  thought,  might  as  well  begin  then  as 
at  any  time.  Warren  wras  late  in  appearing ;  Samuel  Adams 
sat  meantime  as  if  upon  a  powder-barrel  that  might  at  any 
minute  roar  into  the  air  in  a  sudden  explosion.  The  tradition 


48          Samuel  Adams ,  the  Man  of  the  Town- Meeting.      [ 

has  come  down  that  he  was  serene  and  unmoved.  He  quietly 
requested  the  townsmen  to  vacate  the  front  seats  into  which 
he  politely  invited  the  soldiers,  that  they  might  be  well 
placed  to  hear.  The  numbers  were  so  large  that  they  over- 
flowed the  pews  and  many  sat  upon  the  pulpit  stairs.  War- 
ren came  at  last,  entering  through  the  window  behind  the 
pulpit  to  avoid  the  press,  and  at  once  began.  A  picturesque 
incident  in  the  delivery  of  the  oration  was  that,  as  Warren 
proceeded,  a  British  captain,  sitting  on  the  pulpit  stairs,  held 
up  in  his  open  palm  In-fore  Warren's  face  a  number  of  pi-tol 
bullets.  Warren  quietly  dropped  his  handkeivhief'  upon  them 
and  went  on.  It  was  -trange  enough  that  that  oration  was 
given  without  an  outbreak.  i%  W«-  wildly  stare  about,"  he 
says,  "and  with  amazement  ask  '  Who  spread  this  ruin  around 
us?'  What  wreteh  has  d.  aoe  the  image  of  his  God? 

Has  haughty  Fnmee  or  cruel  Spain  sent  forth  her  myrmidons? 
Ha'  the  urim  savage  rushed  again  from  the  far  distant  wilder- 
ness? Or  does  some  lie] id,  fierce  from  the  depth  of  Hell, 
with  all  the  rancorous  maliee  which  the  apostate  damned  can 
feel,  twang  her  de>mietive  \»>\\-  and  hurl  her  deadly  arrow-  at 
our  l>rea>-  '  none  of  these ;  bat  how  astonishing  1  h  i- 
the  hand  of  liritain  that  inflicts  the  wound.  The  arms  of 
George,  our  rightful  King,  have  Urn  employed  to  abed  that 
blood,  which  freely  >hould  have  flowed  at  his  command,  when 
justice,  or  the  honor  of  his  crown  had  called  his  subjects  to  the 
field."1  The  oration  was  given  without  disturbance,  though 
the  tension  was  tremendous.  In  the  proceedings  that  followed, 
the  quiet  was  not  perfect,  but  the  collision  was  averted  for  a 
time.  The  tro.ip.-  u.-iv  n«»t  quite  ready,  and  on  the  patriot 
side  the  presiding  genius  was  as  prudent  as  he  was  bold.2 

1  Froth ingham's  Warren,  p.  433. 

Mlutehinson  irives  a  new  and  interesting  story  respecting  this  iiu-iimr- 
alilc  town-meeting,  in  hi>  I>i:iry.  "September*;.  177"..  (  ..].  Jaim-s  u-lls  an 
odd  story  of  the  intention  of  the  officers  the  5  March,  that  300  were  in  the 
iiK-rtinLT  to  hear  \)r.  Warren's  oration:  that  if  he  had  said  anythiiu:  a.iraiiift 
the  K:  .  oilieer  was  prepared,  who  stood  near,  with  an  egg,  to  have 


251]       Samuel  Adams,  the  Man  of  the  Town-Meeting.          49 

Shortly  after  he  sent  the  following  quiet  account  to  Richard 
Henry  Lee  in  Virginia : 

BOSTON,  March,  1775. 

On  the  sixth  Instant,  there  was  an  Adjournment  of  our 
Town-meet  ing,  when  an  Oration  was  delivered  in  Commemo- 
ration of  the  Massacre  on  the  5th  of  March,  1770.  I  had 
long  expected  they  would  take  that  occasion  to  beat  up  a 
Breeze,  and  then-tore  (having  the  Honor  of  being  the  Moder- 
ator of  the  Meeting,  and  seeing  Many  of  the  Officers  present 
before  the  orator  came  in)  I  took  care  to  have  them  treated 
with  Civility,  inviting  1 1 1  em  into  convenient  Seats,  &c.,  that 
tiny  ini^lit  have  no  pretence  to  behave  ill,  for  it  is  a  good 
Maxim  in  Politicks  as  well  as  War,  to  put  and  keep  the 
em-my  in  the  wrong.  They  behaved  tolerably  well  till  the 
oration  was  finished,  when  upon  a  motion  made  for  the 
appointment  of  another  orator,  they  began  to  hiss,  which 
irritated  the  assembly  to  the  greatest  Degree  and  Confusion 
ensued.  They,  however,  did  not  gain  their  End,  which  was 
apparently  to  break  up  the  Meeting,  for  order  was  soon 
restored,  and  we  proceeded  regularly  and  finished.  I  am 
persuaded  that  were  it  not  for  the  Danger  of  precipitating  a 
Cri>is,  not  a  Man  of  them  would  have  been  spared.  It  was 
provoking  enough  to  them,  that  while  there  were  so  many 
Troops  stationed  here  for  the  design  of  suppressing  Town- 
meetings,  there  should  yet  be  a  Meeting  for  the  purpose  of 


thrown  in  his  face,  and  that  was  to  have  been  a  signal  to  draw  swords,  and 
thfv  would  have  massacred  Hancock,  Adams,  and  hundreds  more;  and  he 
added  he  wished  they  had.  I  am  glad  they  did  not :  for  I  think  it  would 
have  been  an  everlasting  disgrace  to  attack  a  body  of  people  without  arms 
to  defend  themselves. 

"  He  says  one  officer  cried  '  Fy !  Fy ! '  and  Adams  immediately  asked 
who  dared  say  so  ?  And  then  said  to  the  officer  he  should  mark  him.  The 
officer  answered  *  And  I  will  mark  you.  I  live  at  such  a  place,  and  shall 
be  ready  to  meet  you.'  Adams  said  he  would  go  to  his  General.  The 
officer  said  his  General  had  nothing  to  do  with  it ;  the  affair  was  between 
them  two."  Diary  and  Letters,  pp.  528-529. 

4 


50          Samuel  Adams,  ///<  N«n  of  the  Toir,,-^f»fii,f/. 

delivering  an  oration  to  commemorate  a  Massacre  perpetrated 
by  Soldiers,  and  to  show  the  Danger  of  standing  Armies. 

SAMUEL  ADAMS.1 

It  was  but  a  few  weeks  now  to  the  19th  of  April,  when 
Samuel  Adam-,  flying  with  llancoek  arr«»s  the  fields  from 
Lexington  t<>  \\'ol>urn,  exelaimrd:  u  What  a  glorious  nmrn- 
iiiLT  is  tl, '  On  the  1  '2\\\  of  June  came  Gage's  proclamation, 

offering  full  pardon  to  every  soul  in  America  on  condition  of 
submission,  "excepting  only  from  the  Benefit  of  such  Pardon 
Samuel  Adams  and  John  Hancock,  whose  Offences  are  of  too 
ilairitioii-  a  Nature  to  admit  of  any  other  Consideration  than 
that  of  condign  Punishment. ": 

Samuel  Adam-.  a>  a  memUr  of  Congress,  now  enters  upon 
a  career,  which  takes  him  from  the  scene  of  his  early  activity. 
Both  friends  and  enemies  t«-tify  t«>  the  weight  of  his  influence 
in  the  new  sphere.  According  to  ( »allo\\  ay,  t  lie  al»le  Penn-yl- 
vanian,  who  so  much  embarrassed  the  action  of  the  first  Con- 
gress, and  afterwards  stood  strong  on  the  royal  side:  "  It  was 
l\\\<  man  who,  l»v  his  superior  application,  managed  at  once 
the  faction  in  Congress  at  Philadelphia,  and  the  faction  in 
N«-w  KiiLrland  ; ''  and  Jefferson  wrote:  "I  always  considered 
him  more  than  any  other  man  the  fountain  of  our  important 
measures."  attained  before  the  nation  the  por- 

tion which  lie  had  held  in  his  own  province  and  town.  While 
hi-  younger  kinsman,  John  Adams,  rapidly  rose  to  eminence, 
he  remained  less  distinguished  in  the  body  of  delegates,  which, 
as  the  war  proeeeded,  irradually  sank  lower  and  lower  in  the 
estimation  of  the  country.  Possibly  his  abilities  were  better 
adapted  to  the  arena  of  the  Folk-mote  than  to  that  of  a  great 
representative  l>ody.  Certainly  his  principles  were  such  as  to 
lead  to  embarrassment  in  the  management  of  large  af lairs. 
His  excessive  dislike  of  delegated  power,  for  instance,  led 

1  Copied  from  the  manuscript  in  Bancroft's  collection. 
*From  Mr.  BanrrotVs  o>i>y  uf  tlit-  Proclamation. 


253]       Samuel  Adams,  the  Man  of  the  Town-Meeting.          51 

him  to  oppose  the  establishment  of  departments  presided  over 
by  secretaries,  and  made  him  prefer,  as  the  executive  machin- 
ery of  government,  the  more  awkward  form  of  committees. 
Pie  set  himself  against  a  foreign  office;  against  a  depart- 
ment of  War,  to  be  presided  over  by  Gen.  Sullivan ;  greatest 
mistake  of  all,  against  a  bureau  of  Finance,  with  Robert 
Morris  as  the  secretary. 

With  the  close  of  the  war,  Samuel  Adams  was  consigned 
to  poverty  and  comparative  obscurity.  Age  was  fast  coming 
upon  him  ;  an  estrangement  with  Hancock,  whose  star  was  in 
the  ascendant,  helped  to  throw  him  into  the  background;  the 
tendency  toward  aristocratic  forms  and  a  government  strongly 
rentrali/ed,  which,  alter  the  rebellion  of  Shays,  became  very 
marked  in  Massachusetts,  brought  into  disrepute  the  great 
arch -democrat.  Yet  Samuel  Adams  was  rarely  unreasonable 
in  his  advocacy.  In  the  dismal  time  of  the  Shays  trouble  he 
stood  stoutly  for  law  and  order  against  the  vast  popular  con- 
spiracy. The  insurgents  had  powerful  backing  and  the 
means  employed  were  not  greatly  different  from  those  used 
before  the  war  a^ain^t  IJritish  aggression.  "Now  that  we 
have  regular  and  constitutional  government,"  said  Samuel 
Adams,  "popular  committees  and  county  conventions  are  not 
only  useless  but  dangerous.  They  served  an  excellent  pur- 
pose and  were  highly  necessary  when  they  were  set  up,  and  I 
shall  not  repent  the  small  share  I  then  took  in  them."  He 
declared  for  the  sternest  measures  in  support  of  the  laws.  At 
the  head  of  Boston  town-meeting,  which  he  guided  in  the  old 
way  as  Moderator,  and  whose  spokesman  he  became  in  the 
crisis,  he  strengthened  the  hands  of  his  noble  old  colleague 
Bowdoin,  now  become  Governor,  in  the  most  decisive  course. 
"  In  monarchies  the  crime  of  treason  and  rebellion  may  admit 
of  being  pardoned  or  lightly  punished ;  but  the  man  who 
dares  to  rebel  against  the  laws  of  a  republic  ought  to  suffer 
death." 

In  the  matter  of  the  adoption  of  the  Federal  Constitution, 
his  position  was  not  at  all  that  of  Patrick  Henry  and  Richard 


52          Samuel  Adams,  the  Man  of  the  Toirn-Meeting.      [254 

Henry  Lee,  who  opposed  it  with  all  their  power.  He  re<vived 
it  hesitatingly,  and  suggested  amendments  looking  toward  a 
diminution  of  what  he  felt  to  be  a  dangerous  tendency  toward 
<viitrali/ation.  He  never,  however,  set  himself  against  it  ; 
indeed,  it  was  only  through  his  influence  that  Massachusetts 
was  at  length  induced  to  adopt  it.1 

The  neglect  and  obloquy  of  which  the  old  man  had  become 
the  subject  were  pitiful.  Th- re  is  -till  in  exigence  the  note, 
written  in  a  rude  hand  upon  common  paper,  the  letters  run 
together  while  lying  upon  the  wet  grass  of  his  garden  into 
which  it  had  been  thrown,  in  which  Samuel  Adams  is  warned 
to  expeci  :intion.  He  remained,  indeed,  the  public 

servant,  but  in  positions  comparatively  inconspicuous,  while 
men,  whose  fortune-1  he  had  made,  were  in  the  places  of  honor. 
But  before  it  was  too  late,  the  whirligig  of  time  had  begun  to 
bring  in  its  reTOOgeB.  A  -!r.»ng  effort  was  made  t«>  -.-ml  him 
once  more  to  Congress,  as  the  administration  of'  Washington 
began  under  the  ju>t-:id«»pted  Constitution.  The  effort  was 
unsuccessful,  but  the  canva-s  awoke  the  liearts  of  the  people 
to  a  better  appreciation  of  their  well-tried  servant.  To  the 
man  of  to-day.  -u--h  a  conjunction  as  the  setting  side  by  side 
of  the  names  of  Washington  and  Samuel  Adams  seems  little 
less  than  ludicrous.  It  was  not  absurd  in  th«».-c  days.  Say 
the  writer-  :  "  While  we  are  careful  to  introduce  to  our  Federal 
Legislature  the  American  Fabius,  let  us  not  be  unmindful  of 
the  American  C'ato."  He  became  lieutenant-governor,  and,  in 
1793,  governor,  a  post  which  he  occupied  through  successive 
re-elections  until  ITi'T.when  he  retired  from  public  service  at 
the  age  of  75.  Could  he  have  lived  another  life,  a  brilliant 
recognition  would  probably  have  fallen  to  him.  The  forces 


'Bancroft:  Hist,  of  Constitution,  II.,  261. 

In  a  private  letter  to  the  write  r,  Mr.  I'.ancroft  says:  "Point  out  the  error 
that  many  have  iniaK-  in  saying  that  he  was  at  first  opposed  to  the  Consti- 
tution. He  never  was  opposed  to  the  Constitution;  he  only  waited  to 
make  up  his  mind." 


255]       Samuel  Adams,  the  Man  of  the  Town-Meeting.          53 

of  Federalism  were  growing  exhausted  ;  the  incoming  wave 
of  "  Democracy  "  would  certainly  have  lifted  him  into  a  place 
of  power.  Already  in  1790,  Virginia  cast  for  him  in  the 
Electoral  College  fifteen  votes  for  the  Presidency,  putting  him 
next  to  Jefferson,  to  whom  she  gave  twenty;  and,  in  1801, 
when  at  length  the  change  had  come,  Jefferson,  just  elected, 
wrote  to  tin-  octogenarian :  "How  much  I  lament  that  time 
has  deprived  me  of  your  aid!  It  would  have  been  a  day  of 
glorv  which  should  have  called  you  to  the  first  office  of  my 
administration.  Hut  give  us  your  counsel,  my  friend,  and 
give  us  your  Me—  in-  :  and  be  assured  that  there  exists 
not  in  the  heart  of  man  a  more  faithful  esteem  than  mine 
to  you."1 

( )nly  once  in  his  old  age  did  the  uncompromising  Puritan 
so  far  forget  himself  as  to  fall  into  an  inconsistency.  As 
governor,  he  felt  that  his  function  was  simply  executive,  to 
carry  out  the  will  of  the  people  and  their  representatives  in 
the  legislature,  and  that  it  was  a  usurpation  for  such  a  magis- 
trate to  interpose  his  veto  to  thwart  their  action  or  in  any 
other  way  to  proceed  independently.  But  efforts  were  made 
to  open  a  theatre  in  Boston!  The  legislature  passed  an  act 
prohibiting  it,  upon  which  the  people  in  town-meeting  de- 
manded its  repeal.  This  the  old  man  fought  on  the  floor  of 
Faneuil  Hall,  till  his  voice  was  drowned  in  a  roar  of  opposi- 
tion. The  demand  for  repeal  was  made  to  which  the  legisla- 
ture listened.  But  the  stout  Independent  whose  strictness 
was  only  to  be  matched  by  the  toughest  of  the  covenanters  or 
the  most  unbending  of  the  Ironsides,  in  his  gubernatorial 
capacity  vetoed  the  repeal.  The  Puritan  and  the  politician 
for  once  were  in  conflict,  and  the  Puritan  carried  the  day. 
For  himself  he  indulged  in  no  amusement  but  psalm-sing- 
ing ;  his  dear  Boston  he  would  have  a  "  Christian  Sparta," 
similarly  limited  in  its  recreations;  to  save  the  town  from 
going  to  the  dogs,  any  sacrifice  could  be  made. 

1  From  the  manuscript  in  Bancroft's  Collection. 


54          Samuel  Adams ,  ike  Man  of  ike  Town-Meeting.      [256 

He  was  narrow,  over  subtle,  perhaps,  in  the  expedients 
which  lie  sometimes  employed,  slow  in  recognizing  the  ways 
through  which,  in  a  vast  republic  like  ours,  all  large  affairs 
must  be  administered.  But  America  has  had  few  public  men 
as  devoted  and,  on  the  whole,  as  wise  as  he.  From  iirst  to 
one  can  detect  in  him  no  thought  of  personal  gain  or 
.  He  was  so  poor,  that  when  he  went  to  the  First  Con- 
tinental Congress  in  1774.  his  friends  were  obliged  to  buy 
him  clothes  that  he  mi^ht  make  a  respectable  appearance. 
His  wife  sometimes  supported  the  family,  while  he  worked 
for  the  town  or  state.  He  lived  in  his  latter  years  in  the 
confiscated  house  of  a  Tory  which  wa-  given  him  rent-free  as 
an  offset  to  claims  he  had  for  public  service.  It  would  have 
been  necessary  at  last  to  support  and  bury  him  at  the  public 
charge,  had  he  not  inherited  from  his  only  son,  an  army  sur- 
geon who  died  at  37,  claims  against  the  government  which 
yielded  about  six  thon-and  dollars.  This  sum,  fortunately 
invested,  sufficed  for  the  simple  wants  of  himself  and  his 
faithful  wil'e.  As  careless  \\a.-  he  in  regard  to  his  position 
before  his  cotemporaries  and  in  history.  Time  and  again  the 
credit  l«»r  great  measures  which  he  originated  \\a-  uiven  to 
men  who  were  simply  his  agents,  and  there  was  never  a 
remonstrance  from  him;  time  and  again  men  whom  he 
brought  forward  from  obscurity,  to  set  here  or  there,  with 
scarcely  more  volition  of  their  o\\  n  than  so  many  chess-men, 
stood  in  an  eminence  before  the  world  which  is  not  yet  lost, 
ol>s,-urini:  the  real  master.  Papers  which  would  have  estab- 
lished his  title  to  a  position  among  the  greatest,  he  destroyed 
bv  his  own  hand  or  left  at  hap-ha/ard.  He  died  October  L\ 
1803.  Political  rancor  pursued  him  to  the  last.  There  was 
embarrassment  in  procuring  a  suitable  escort  for  the  funeral  ; 
the  legislature  of  Massachusetts  <li<l  him  scant  honor;  even 
to-day  his  grave  in  the  Granary  bury  ing-ground,  in  the  heart 
of  the  town  that  he  so  much  loved,  is  marked  slightly,  if 
at  all. 


257]       Samuel  Adams,  the  Man  of  the  Town-Meeting.          55 

THE  TOWN-MEETING  TO-DAY. 

Though  the  Town-meeting  of  the  New  England  of  to-day 
ruivly  present^  all  the  features  of  the  Town-meeting  of  the 
Revolution,  yet  wherever  the  population  has  remained  toler- 
ably pure  from  foreign  admixture,  and  wherever  the  numbers 
at  the  same  time  have  not  become  so  large  as  to  embarrass, 
tin-  institution  retains  much  of  its  old  vigor.  The  writer 
recalls  the  life,  its  it  was  twenty-five  years  ago,  of  a  most 
veiierahle  and  uncontaminated  old  town,  whose  origin  dates 
back  more  than  two  hundred  years.  At  first  it  realized 
almost  perfectly  the  idea  of  the  Teutonic  "tun."  For  long 
it  was  the  frontier  .-cttlement,  with  nothing  to  the  west  but 
woods  until  the  fierce  Mohawks  were  reached,  and  nothing 
but  woods  to  the  north  until  one  came  to  the  hostile  French 
of  Canada.  About  tin-  houses,  therefore,  was  drawn  the  pro- 
tection of  a  paliside  to  enclose  them  (tynan)  against  attack. 
Though  not  without  some  foreign  intermixture,  the  old  stock 
was,  twenty-live  years  ago,  so  far  unchanged  that  in  the 
various  "ddeetricks"  the  dialect  was  often  unmistakeably 
na.sil ;  the  very  bob-o-links  in  the  meadow-grass,  and  the 
bumble-bees  in  the  holly-hooka  might  have  been  imagined  to 
clutter  and  hum  with  a  Yankee  twang;  and  "Zekle"  squired 
"  Huldy,"  as  of  yore,  to  singing-school  or  apple-paring,  to 
quilting  or  sugaring-off,  as  each  season  brought  its  appropri- 
ate festival.  The  same  names  stood  for  the  most  part  on  tax, 
voting,  and  parish  lists  that  stood  there  in  the  time  of  Philip's 
war,  when  for  a  space  the  people  were  driven  out  by  the 
Indian  pressure;  and  the  fathers  had  handed  down  to  the 
modern  day,  with  their  names  and  blood,  the  venerable 
methods  by  which  they  regulated  their  lives.  On  the  north- 
ern boundary  a  factory  village  had  sprung  up  about  a  water- 
power  ;  at  the  south,  too,  five  miles  oif  there  was  some  rattle 
of  mills  and  sound  of  hammers.  For  the  most  part,  how- 
ever, the  people  were  farmers,  like  their  ancestors,  reaping 
great  hay -crops  in  June  with  which  to  fat  in  the  stall  long 


56  Samuel  Adams,  ihc  Man  of  the  Toini-Mcrt'mr/.       [258 

r«>\\s  of  sleek  cattle  for  market  in  December;  or  by  tanner's 
alchemy,  transmuting  the  clover  of  the  rocky  hills  into 
golden  butter. 

From  tar  and  near,  on  the  first  March-Monday,  the  men 
gat  hen  d  to  the  central  village,  whose  people  made  great 
preparations  for  the  entertainment  of  the  people  of  the  out- 
skirts. What  old  Yankee,  wherever  he  may  have  strayed, 
will  not  rememlx-r  the  4k  town-meeting  ginger-bread,"  and 
the  great  ro;i-t-  that  smoked  ho-pitably  for  all  comers!  The 
sheds  of  the  mMting^koVM  clo.-e  \>\-  were  crowded  with  horses 
and  sleiLrj,.  :  for,  in  the  intermediate  slush,  l>ctwcen  ice  and 
the  spring  mud.  tlie  runner  was  likely  to  be  Ix-ttcr  than  the 
wheel.  The  floor  of  the  town-liall  grew  wet  and  heavy  in 
the  trampling;  not  in  Kngland  alone  is  the  land  represented; 
a  1'nll  representation  of  the  soil  comes  to  a  New  Kngland 
town-meeting, — on  the  boots  of  the  freemen.  On  a  platform 
at  the  end  of  the  plain  room  sat  the  five  selectmen  in  a  row, — 
at  their  left  the  ven.-rable  town-clerk,  with  the  ample  volume 
of'  records  l>efore  him.  Hi-  memory  went  hack  to  the  men 
M!IO  were  old  in  Washington's  administration,  who  in  their 
turn  rcmemlMTed  men  in  whose  childhood  the  French  and 
Indians  burned  the  infant  settlement.  Three  lives,  the  town- 
clerk's  the  third,  spanned  the  whole  history  of  the  town.  He 
was  full  of  tradition-,  precedent-,  minutiae  of  town  history, 
an  authority  in  all  disputed  points  of  procedure  from  whom 
there  wa-  no  appeal.  In  front  of  tin-  row  of  selectmen  with 
their  brown,  solid  farmer  faces,  stood  the  Moderator,  a  vigor- 
ous man  in  the  forties.  -i\  straight  feet  in  height,  colonel  of 
the  coiiniv  regiment  of  militia,  of  a  term's  experience  in  the 
General  Court,  thus  conversmt  with  parliamentary  law,  a 
quick  and  energetic  presiding  officer. 

It  was  indeed  an  arena.  The  south  village  was  growing 
faster  than  the  "Street,"  and  then-  were  rumors  of  ellorts  to 
be  made  to  move  the  town-hall  from  its  old  place,  which 
aroused  great  wrath;  and  both  south  village  and  ''Street" 
took  it  hard  that  part  of  the  men  of  the  districts  to  the 


259]       Samud  Adams,  the  Man  of  the  Town-Meeting.          57 

north,  had  favored  a  proposition  to  be  set  off  to  an  adjoining 
town.  The  weak  side  of  human  nature  came  out  as  well  as 
the  strong  in  the  numerous  jealousies  and  bickerings.  Fol- 
lowing the  carefully  arranged  programme  or  warrant,  from 
which  there  could  be  no  departure,  because  ample  warning 
in u-t  be  given  of  every  measure  proposed,  item  after  item 
was  considered, — a  change  here  in  the  course  of  the  highway 
to  the  shire  town,  how  much  should  be  raised  by  taxes,  the 
apportionment  of  money  among  the  school  districts,  what 
bountv  the  t«»wn  would  pay  its  quota  of  troops  for  the  war,  a 
new  wing  for  the  poor-house,  whether  there  should  be  a 
bridge  at  the  west  ford.  Now  and  then  came  a  touch  of 
humor,  as  when  the  young  husbands,  married  within  the 
year,  were  elected  field-drivers,  officers  taking  the  place  of 
the  ancient  hog-reeves.  Once  the  Moderator  for  the  time- 
bring  displeased  the  meeting  by  his  ruling  as  regards  certain 
points  of  order.  "  Mr.  Moderator,"  cried  out  an  ancient  citi- 
/rii  with  a  twang  in  his  voice  like  that  of  a  well-played  jews- 
harp,  "ef  it's  iu  awrder,  I'd  jest  like  to  inquire  the  price  of 
eawn  at  Cheapside."  Another  rustic  Cicero  whom  for  some 
reason  the  physicians  of  the  village  had  displeased,  once  filled 
up  a  lull  in  proceedings  with :  "Mr.  Moderator,  I  move  that 
a  dwelling  be  erected  in  the  centre  of  the  grave-yard  in  which 
the  doctors  of  the  town  be  required  to  reside,  that  they  may 
have  always  under  their  eyes  the  fruits  of  their  labors." 

The  talkers  were  sometimes  fluent,  sometimes  stumbling  and 
awkward.  The  richest  man  in  the  town,  at  the  same  time 
town-tmusurer,  was  usually  a  silent  looker-on.  His  son, 
however,  president  of  the  county  agricultural  society,  an  enter- 
prising farmer,  whose  team  was  the  handsomest,  whose  oxen 
the  fattest,  whose  crops  the  heaviest,  was  in  speech  forceful 
and  eloquent,  with  an  energetic  word  to  say  on  every  ques- 
tion. But  he  was  scarcely  more  prominent  in  the  dis- 
cussions than  a  poor  broom-corn  raiser,  whose  tax  was  only 
a  few  dollars.  There  was  the  intrigue  of  certain  free-thinkers 
to  oust  the  ministers  from  the  school-committee,  —  the 
manoeuvring  of  the  factions  to  get  hold  of  the  German 


58  Sarmtel  Adams,  the  Man  of  the  T<ncn-3L>tin<j.       [260 

colony,  a  body  of  immigrants  lately  imported  into  the  factory- 
village  to  the  north.  These  sat  in  a  solid  mass  to  one  side 
while  the  proceedings  weuton  in  an  unknown  tongue,  without 
previous  training  tor  such  work,  voting  this  way  or  that 
according  to  the  direction  of  two  or  three  leaders. 

Watching  it  all,  one  could  see  how  perfect  a  democracy  it 
was.  Things  wen-  often  done  tar  enough  from  the  IK-SI  way. 
I'n wise  or  doubtful  nidi  wen-  put  in  oilier,  important  projects 
stinted  by  inwardly  appropriations,  unworthy  prejudices 
alh»wed  to  interfere  with  wise  enterprise.-.  Vet  in  the  main 

the  re-ult    wa-  g 1.      This   was  especially  to   IK-  noted, — how 

thoroughly  the  public  spiril  of  those  who  took  part  wa.-.-timu- 
laled,  and  how  well  they  \\ere  trained  to  self-reliance,  intelli- 
gence of  various  kinds,  and  love  for  freedom.  The  rough 
blacksmith  or  shoemaker,  who  had  his  say  as  to  what  .-hould 
b  •  the  restriction  about  the  keeping  of  dogs,  or  the  pa.-turing 
of  sheep  on  the  w«>t«-rn  hill.-,  .-poke  hi.-  mind  in  homely 
fashion  enough,  and  possibly  recomnu -nded  some  course  not 
the  wise.-t.  That  he  could  do  so,  however,  helped  his  .-elf- 
respect,  caused  him  to  tnke  a  deeper  intcre.-t  in  atlairs  beyond 
himself,  than  if  thing-  were  managed  without  a  right  on  his 
part  to  interfere;  and  this  gain  in  wlf-respect,  public  spirit, 
.-elf-reliance,  to  the  blacksmith  and  shoemaker  is  worth  far 
more  than  a  mere  smooth  or  cheap  carrying-on  of  affairs. 

I-  there  anything  more  valuable  among  Anglo-Saxon  insti- 
tution.- than  this  -ame  ancient  Folk-mote,  this  old-fashioned 
Xe\v  Kngland  Town-meet  ing '.'  What  a  li.-t  of  important 
men  can  be  cited  who  have  declared  in  the  -troiige.-t  terms 
that  tongue  can  utter  their  conviction  of  its  preciousncss  ! '  It 


1  John  Stuart  Mill :  II«-|»n-<i utative  (iovc-rnnu-nt,  p.  <U,  etc*.  De  Tocque- 
vilk-:  IK-  la  I»i"rniHT:itii-  <-n  Aiin'ri(|iu-,  \.  \>.  M,  etc.  J.  Toulinin  Smith: 
I,«i,  ;il  S(  li'-(  iiivt-rniiH-nt  an-1  ( 'mtrali/,atii)!i,  j>. '_".'.  ft<-.  May:  (  (institutional 
Ili-tory  ()!'I-;n-lan.l,  11.  -i«',o.  Uluntxhli:  <iu«»ti-«l  I »y  J  I.  I',.  Adams,  Germanic 
Ori-rin  «•«'  N.  Ii.  ToWM.  .JflliT-m  :  to  Keivlu-val,  July  IL',  lx]<;,  ;,n<l  to 
Caht-ll,  IM-II.  '_',  1816.  John  Adams:  Letter  t..  hi-  \\'if  .  Oct  -'.'.  1776. 
Saniurl  A«l:ini-:  Letter  to  Noah  \\Yl.stiT.  April  30,  1784.  11.  W. 
!-d  Uiccntcnnial  Discourse,  I8l>o,  eU1.,  etc. 


261]       Samuel  Adams,  the  Man  of  the  Town-Meeting.          59 

has  been  alleged  that  to  this  more  than  anything  else  was  due 
the  supremacy  of  England  in  America,  the  successful  coloniza- 
tion out  of  which  grew  at  last  the  United  States.  France 
ia i  1< •( I  precisely  for  want  of  this.1  England  prevailed  precisely 
because  "  nations  which  are  accustomed  to  township  institu- 
tions and  municipal  goverment  are  better  able  than  any  other 
to  found  prosperous  colonies.  The  habit  of  thinking  and 
governing  for  one's  self  is  indispensable  in  a  new  country." 
S<>  says  De  Tooqueville,  seeking  an  explanation  for  the  failure 
of  his  own  ra< •«•  and  the  victory  of  its  great  rival.2  None 
have  admired  this  thorough  New  England  democracy  more 
heartily  than  those  living  under  a  very  different  polity. 
Richard  Henry  Lee,  of  Virginia,  wrote  in  admiration  of 
Massachusetts,3 — "  where  yet  I  hope  to  finish  the  remainder  of 
n iy  days.  The  hasty,  un persevering,  aristocratic  genius  of 
the  South  suits  not  my  disposition,  and  is  inconsistent  with 
my  views  of  what  must  constitute  social  happiness  and 
security."  Jefferson  becomes  almost  fierce  in  the  earnestness 
with  which  he  ur^es  Virginia  to  adopt  the  township.  "Those 
wards,  called  townships  in  New  England,  are  the  vital  prin- 
ciple of  their  governments,  and  have  proved  themselves  the 
wisest  invention  ever  devised  by  the  wit  of  man  for  the 
perfect  exercise  of  self-government,  and  for  its  preservation. 
....  As  Cato,  then,  concluded  every  speech  with  the 
words  '  Carthago  delenda  est,'  so  do  I  every  opinion  with  the 
injunction  :  *  Divide  the  counties  into  wards ! '  "4 

The  town-meeting  has  been  called  "  the  primordial  cell  of 
our  body-politic."  Is  its  condition  at  present  such  as  to 
.-ati-tV  us?  As  we  have  seen,  even  in  New  England,  it  is 
only  here  and  there  that  it  can  be  said  to  be  well-maintained. 
At  the  South,  Anglo-Saxon  freedom,  like  +he  enchanted 


'Lecky:  Hist.  XVIIIth  Century,  I.,  387. 
»De  la  Ddm.  en  Am.,  I.,  423. 

3  Life  of  R.  H.  Lee :  Letter  to  John  Adams,  Oct.  7,  1779,  I.,  p.  226. 

4  Works,  VI.,  544;  VII.,  13. 


60  Samuel  Adams,  the  Man  of  the  Tvwn-Medinrj.      [262 

prince  of  the  Arabian  \ights,  whose  body  below  the  waist 
the  evil  witch  had  fixed  in  black  marble,  lias  been  fixed  in 
African  slavery.  The  spell  is  destroyed ;  the  prince  has  his 
limbs  again,  l>nt  they  arc  weak  and  wasted  from  the  hideous 
trammel.  The  traces  of  the  Folk-mote  in  the  South  are 
sadly  few.  Xor  elsewhere  is  the  prospect  encouraging.  The 
influx  of  alien  tides  to  whom  our  precious  heir-looms  are  as 
nothing,  the  growth  of  cities  and  the  inext ricable  perplexities 
of  their  government,  the  vast  inequality  of  condition  between 
man  and  man — what  room  is  there  for  the  little  primary 
council  of  freemen,  homogeneous  in  stock.  holding  the  same 
faith,  on  the  same  level  as  to  wealth  and  station,  not  too  few 
in  number  for  the  kindling  of  intcrot.  not  BO  many  tf  to 
become  unmaiiageahh — what  room  is  there  for  it,  and  how 
can  it  be  revivified  or  created?  It  is  perhaps  hopeh  —  to 
think  of  it.  Mr.  Freeman  remarks  that  in  some  of  the 
American  colonies  "representation  has  supplanted  the  primi- 
tive Teutonic  democracy  which  had  sprung  into  life  in  the 
institution^  of  the  first  settlers."  Over  va>t  areas  of  our 
country,  ivpiv-entaiion,  to-day,  has  supplanted  democracy. 
It  is  an  admirable,  an  indispensable  expedient,  of  course. 
Yet  that  a  representative  system  may  be  thoroughly  well 
managed.  \v  need  below  it  the  primary  assemblies  of  the 
individual  citi/.ens,  "regular,  fixed,  frequent,  and  accessible," 
discussing  atlliirs  and  deciding  for  themselves.  De  Toc<jue- 
ville  seems  to  have  thought  that  Anglo-Saxon  America  owes 
.  istriiee  to  the  Town-meeting.  It  would  be  hard,  at  any 
rate,  to  shnw  that  the  Town-meeting  was  not  a  main  source 
of  our  freedom.  Certainly,  it  is  well  to  hold  it  in  memory; 
to  give  it  new  life,  if  possible,  wherever  it  exists;  to  repro- 
duce some  semblance  of  it,  however  faint,  in  the  regions  to 
which  it  is  unknown  ;  it  is  well  to  brush  the  dust  off  the 
half-forgotten  historic  figure  who,  of  all  men,  is  its  best  type 
and  representative. 


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